


Beware the D--- in Apartment 33

by bioloyg



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Artist Stiles Stilinski, Broody Derek Hale, Emissary Stiles Stilinski, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, I'm just using the lore and bending it to my will, Kanimas, M/M, Minor Side Relationships, Murder, Murder Mystery, Nurse Stiles Stilinski, Slow Burn, Spark Stiles Stilinski, basically he's an asshole like I can only beat around that bush so long, reluctant allies, spoiler: none of the main characters die because fuck canon, sterek, this story is just thousands of words of me saying: fuck canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-04-27 01:07:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 47,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14414349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioloyg/pseuds/bioloyg
Summary: Fresh out of college, Stiles moves back to Beacon Hills with a job at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital. He's got a great apartment and the rent is cheap, his bills are paid, and the view from his apartment is amazing. There's just one teensy little problem. People around town are going missing, and worse still, some of them are turning up dead. Can Stiles help his dad solve the case in time to spare more lives? And what about his suspicious neighbor across the hall in Apartment 33?~"Stiles practically moans in relief when he reaches the side door of the building. He frantically makes his way up the steps, just barely to the first official floor when he hears the door below slowly creak open and then click shut. He chances a look down and catches a black-hooded figure making their way up the stairs.He doesn’t stick around to see what else they’re wearing, where they’re going, or what they’re after. Instead, he takes the stairs two at a time, sometimes three, and pretends that his heart isn’t currently in his throat."~UPDATE Apr. 6 2019 - Grad school is killing me but I have not forgotten or abandoned this. Just uhhh, on an extended hiatus /:





	1. Talk is Cheap; Rent is Cheaper

**Author's Note:**

> After nearly two years of consideration I have decided to repost this fic on AO3. When I deleted this piece of fiction there were a few people who asked what happened to it and if I would repost it. At the time I said no, and I stand by that decision. Things change, though. No matter what I did, or what I wrote, there was always this nagging voice in the back of my head saying, "But what about Beware the D? You loved that fic."  
> So here we are, nearly two years later - almost three considering when I first posted it.  
> This is the one piece of fiction I've written that I just can't seem to get away from, and it's because I can't that I've decided to repost it.  
> I've been away from the Teen Wolf fandom for some time now, and the reasons for that are numerous, but I'm always going to be stuck on this fandom. So, with that in mind while you read this (if you do), please be gentle with me, I am RUSTY on my TW knowledge. But, I promise I'll do my best to make this a good read, especially for those who wanted this story most back when I first posted it.

Waves of rain wash over Beacon County, a welcome respite from the harsh and dry summer. The autumn shower beats against buildings, enveloping all inhabitants in a shroud of calming white noise. Outside, cars begin to slow to a crawl, trees shiver in the wind, and birdsong ceases as the storm crescendos. Each and every bit of the town, in awe of Mother Nature’s prowess, silently appraising, stops to bow.

Inside one particular building on the third and final floor, apartment 34, water trickles in. The sky casts its eerie grey and purple light over the main room, reaching through the wall of windows, ending in a gentle caress. Books upon shelves are illuminated at the far right wall by a flash of lightning. Vibrations from the resounding thunder shake the easels and paintbrushes that sit at the center of the room.

 _Drip_.

A bucket is placed on the floor. It’s yellow, but the dim lighting washes it out making it seem colorless.

_Drop._

A second bucket finds its way to the floor not all that far from the first. This one fills quickly and is traded out for the yellow bucket, which is much larger.

  _Plip_.

_Plop._

_Drip._

_Drop._

More buckets are added in an attempt to dull the cacophony of water droplets assaulting the hardwood floors of the loft, 34. The easels are covered, lest any more leaks spring, and candles are scrounged up from the deepest of hiding places.

It only takes one, two, three clicks for a lighter to catch and burn the first wick. It only takes one, two more cracks of lightning for the power to go out.

The tenant within manages to grab a throw pillow in the dark and situates himself amidst the buckets, waiting for more leaks to spring forth. Water ricochets onto his skin every now and again, but he doesn’t seem to mind. The day, now long since over, has been arduous. Filled with unpacking, then painting, and then more unpacking – which still isn’t completed somehow.

He looks up and out of the wall of windows and sighs. The storm looms overhead as day two in the new apartment fades and blends into day three.

~

“You should see the place, Scott. As soon as you walk in there’s an entire wall that’s just – windows. All windows. It’s so amazing. And the view –” he whistles and presses his forearm to the frame of one of the windows. Below him there’s a sea of yellow-green leaves and fresh pavement leading down a hill.

Scott sighs on the line, whether wistful or bored the tenant can’t quite tell. “I’m sure it’s amazing Stiles.”

Bored. Definitely bored. It doesn’t bother him in the slightest though. “Well, you’ll see it eventually. The only problem I’ve had so far is with the roof leaking, but I don’t know if I can fault the builders. California isn’t exactly the home of torrential downpour, so.”

“Your roof is already leaking?”

Stiles leans forward, face a hairsbreadth away from the pane of glass, and catches a glimpse of someone walking to their car. “Yeah, but it poured like hell last night. Power went out and everything.”

Scott mutters something unintelligible under his breath and Stiles can’t help but roll his eyes; Scott hasn’t had one positive thing to say about the apartment even though he hasn’t so much as seen it yet.

“I don’t know,” Stiles starts up again to fill the silence, turning away from the window while cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder. “I just can’t believe I can afford this place. It looks at least five hundred dollars outside of my price range.”

His best friend snorts. “How _did_ you afford a loft in Beacon Heights?”

He shrugs as if Scott is here to see it as he digs through yet another box, all while making a vague sound in the back of his throat. “The owner said they’ve been having trouble getting people to rent. Anyone they did manage to reel in moved out shortly after. Something about the guy in apartment 33 being a dick and ghosts or whatever.”

“Why doesn’t the landlord just kick him out? And _ghosts_?”

Stiles aha’s when he finds his favorite mug and sets it on the kitchen counter for later. “Unfounded claims. Says the guy is their best tenant, always pays on time, ahead of time even. And yeah, ghosts.”

Scott huffs. “Elaborate, please.”

“Well, you know. Lights flickering, blood on the walls, one of the tenants chopped their hand off back in nineteen fifty– “

“Stiles quit fucking with me.”

He laughs and sets the last cup of the box into the cabinet. “I’m _kidding_. You expect me to believe some weird nonsense about ghosts? There’s probably just some neighboring tenant having really kinky sex, _I don’t know_. I don’t care either because I’m living in a loft for way less than market price, and I get to wake up and paint the sunrise every morning like a brooding artist.”

“You say that _now_.”

“Scott, please just – be excited for me. I’m not that far away, okay?” Stiles sighs and grabs the phone from where it’s tucked in his shoulder and hops onto the counter to swing his feet.

The line is silent for a while before Scott replies. “Fine. I still don’t understand why you didn’t move in with me and Allison though.”

Stiles resists the urge to stare daggers into his phone. He’ll glare later if they Skype. “College was enough. Just because I can put up with whatever sex-depraved person is jerking it around here doesn’t mean I enjoyed listening to you guys do it on every flat surface known to man.”

“Hey!”

“Besides. I needed space. Not from you,” he rushes to tack on at the end. “For my things. I already have like five easels out.”

Something clangs in the background and Scott hisses out a curse. “Ugh, I gotta go. One of the cats got out of her cage and she’s losing it in here. I’m still not happy about this situation, but I _am_ happy for you.”

Stiles’ lips curve upward. “Thanks dude.”

~

Packing is the absolute worst. Unpacking is a close second. And Stiles loves puzzles, but this? This unpacking business, the jigsaw that is his new home? Awful. Especially since he’s doing it alone.

“That’s adulthood for you,” Stiles mutters as he sweeps up the broken glass from a cup he forgot he stashed among clothes for safekeeping. “Irony and broken dishes.”

The glass clinks and slides through the bag of trash as he picks it up by its handles to cinch it. He frowns as he takes in the three trash bags waiting for him by the door on top of the one already in his hand. Wasn’t he supposed to get rid of all his trash _before_ he moved? How does he already have so much?

An ominous rumble sounds out in the distance, cutting into Stiles’ thoughts. He shuffles to the window to watch as lightning dances from cloud to cloud and then lets out a long, low breath. Another storm, and one that will reach him shortly.

He sets down the trash bag and takes a few of the tiny watercolor tubes from his blossoming work area to mark the places of each bucket as he goes to the kitchen to dump them out. When he’s finished he wipes his hands on his jeans, puts away the small stack of tubes, and slips on a pair of vans to take the trash out. The door creaks and then clicks shut behind him.

Despite the cozy interior of the rest of the apartment building, Stiles finds himself rushing down the stairwell off to the side. The lighting here is piss poor, a weird dirty yellow, and it makes his skin crawl. He’s not exactly sure who would be in charge of cleaning a side stairwell, but whoever they are – they’re slacking. There’s cobwebs in almost every corner and if a spider falls on him he will not hesitate to scream. Dignity or no.

The walk to the dumpster out back is no more soothing. Although, it _is_ night time, and he’s headed for a dumpster. Not exactly the most scenic walk in town. Stiles chalks it up to the nerves associated with a move when the hair on the back of his neck rises as something moves through the trees on the perimeter. He’s probably overreacting.

Before he can make it halfway back the sky upends itself, water and thunder causing equal amounts of noise and trouble. He sprints the rest of the way to the stairwell but it’s of no use.

He barges inside and leans breathlessly against a wall before wringing out the bottom of his shirt. Water splatters at his equally soaked feet adding to the puddle his body has created. An aggrieved sigh slips past his lips as he resigns himself to walking back upstairs.

_Squelch._

He winces.

 _Squelch, squirk, squelch_.

“Ugh.”

Stiles takes off his shoes and continues his trek up the three flights of stairs. To say he’s winded when he makes it back up is a bit of an understatement, but if you ask him he’ll just blame it on the pain in the ass that is wet jeans.

As Stiles enters the third floor he notices a dark figure stepping from the elevator. Whoever they are, they’re tall and move with a grace just bordering on unnatural for someone their size. Lightning breaks from the clouds and illuminates their body, but only so Stiles can better make out their shape. Otherwise, it’s as if the light bounces right off them, a layer over the darkness that surrounds them.

The person’s slow gait sends bolts of nervous electricity zipping up Stiles’ spine that are not much unlike those of the storm outside. It’s not until they both end up at their doors, across from one another, that Stiles can make out any distinguishing features and subsequently calm himself. It’s not until then that Stiles realizes this is the infamous, hellish tenant of apartment 33.

 ** _This_** _is Apartment 33?_ He thinks to himself.

Stiles tries not to gape, but he was expecting someone a bit more… old. And ugly. Apartment 33 is _not_ ugly, he’s got this dangerously hot bad boy look going – leather jacket and all. He’s definitely not old, either. In fact, despite being around the same height and age as Stiles, the guy looks like he could bench press a small car.

The man catches Stiles staring, his head turning over his shoulder once his door is unlocked. He raises an eyebrow in question.  Stiles can’t help but note that the man’s eyes are so incredibly blue in the dimly lit hallway, icy almost. Something about them has Stiles stuttering. “Oh – uh hey, you must be my neighbor.”

Apt. 33 looks back at his door and then Stiles. “Seeing as I live across from you, yes.”

Stiles offers up a meek smile and hooks a thumb back at his door. “Right. Anyway, uh, I’m Stiles, the new guy.” He holds out his hand despite his better judgment, quickly regretting it when the man flinches, obviously put off by his wet state.

Stiles wipes the hand on his equally wet shirt as if that’ll help. “Sorry. Kinda started storming halfway through my run to the dumpster.”

33 nods slowly, eyes traveling the length of Stiles’ body with a scrutiny that is the absolute _farthest_ from sexual one could possibly get. It’s like the visual equivalent of being poked and prodded at by a doctor. “A jacket usually helps,” the man says offhandedly before he slips into his apartment, promptly shutting the door in Stiles’ face.

“Nice to meet you too, whatever your name is,” Stiles mutters as he turns to his own door.

His shoes hit the floor with a heavy thunk as soon as he opens the door to his own apartment, and a full body chill is quick to follow. When Stiles finally makes it into the bathroom he rolls his eyes and groans. Not only does he _feel_ like a wet back-alley mutt, he’s wearing his painting plaid which is covered in – you guessed it – _paint_ , so he looks like one too.

His cheeks are red and flushed from the cool air but the space beneath his eyes is dark and makes him look exhausted. _Wow_ , _what a great first impression Stiles_. _You look like death_. He presses his fingertips to the tops of his cheek and mutters, “No wonder he didn’t introduce himself.”

~

Stiles halfheartedly bites his thumbnail, one leg propped up on a bench in the laundry room, while he watches _The X-Files_. Mulder is moments away from some gut-wrenching realization when the washing machine beeps, startling Stiles back into reality. He taps the screen of his tablet to pause it and begrudgingly shifts everything into the dryer. Halfway through, goosebumps track a path up his back. He rights himself and slowly turns his head over his shoulder, searching for the cause. What Stiles finds is Apartment 33, standing one machine over, staring.

He can’t help but startle, can’t help the small gasp that passes his lips either. “Wow, you are _quiet_. Have you been here this whole time?”

Rather than verbally address Stiles, the man’s eyebrows answer for him. Probably lifting in mockery of Stiles’ weak heart. Then 33 just turns to his machine, transferring clothes as if nothing happened. As if he wasn’t just silently glaring in Stiles’ direction.

 _Okay_ , Stiles thinks as he finishes loading the dryer. _He’s a bit standoffish. Well, more like an asshole, but the landlord **did** warn me. Maybe he’s shy. A tortured soul or whatever. _ He pauses. _Oh shit, what if he’s just hard of hearing and he didn’t hear me and I’m over here judging?_

Stiles tests this theory when he sits back down, now closer to the man. “I didn’t catch your name the other day.”

“I know,” is the curt reply he receives.

Stiles tilts his head ever so slightly and narrows his eyes. The guy didn’t even bother to turn in Stiles’ direction, and he didn’t miss a beat after Stiles asked the question either. He puts a star by _asshole_ on his imaginary check list. “Mr. Cold Shoulder it is.”

“Excuse me?”

Stiles stiffens and chances a glance upward, his head unmoving. Much softer eyes bore holes into him now, only soft in the sense that the bright light of the room dilutes their intensity. Apartment 33 is nothing short of intimidating, and the intensity that’s in his eyes right now is etched into every other part of his body too.

Stiles’ eyes dart away quickly. “Nothing.”

33 leaves the laundry room and Stiles crosses _hard of hearing_ off his mental list.

~

Scott rests his hand on his table and looks down at the computer. His voice is tinny and even with 5G wifi his face is pixelated in their video chat. “Wait, lemme get this straight. This guy has been nothing but rude to you, won’t give you his name, but you think he’s hot.”

Stiles makes a childish noise in protest. “It’s not like that.”

“Uh _huh_.”

“Oh come on, objectively he _is_ hot,” Stiles begins, adjusting the screen of his laptop. “Haven’t you ever seen someone that has this magnetic pull? Like, even if your other senses are telling you _Danger_ or _This guy’s an asshole,_ you’re so intrigued by something about them that it overrides the response.”

Scott lifts an eyebrow and scoffs. “Uh, no dude.”

Stiles presses his lips together and looks up. He rubs his chin for a good thirty seconds trying to find the right words. “It’s not – it’s not like a crush, Scott. He’s just interesting. In an almost clinical sense.”

“What exactly are you trying to diagnose him with?” He wiggles his eyebrows like the immature dork that he is. It still gets a smile out of Stiles.

“Nothing like whatever _you’re_ thinking. I want to know what he’s about. Partially because he’s managed to chase off a small handful of tenants and partially because of this weird feeling I get whenever I see him.”

Scott sits down at his chair and the grin on his face widens. “He already makes you feel tingly, huh?”

“Ugh.” Stiles sticks out his tongue and threatens to close his laptop. As Scott protests he opens it back up. “ _No_ , he doesn’t make me feel tingly. Well yes and no – but not like that!”

“ _Mhmm_.”

“He’s – I don’t know. Whenever I see him I feel...” Stiles sighs, long and loud. “I feel like something is gonna happen, like there’s this charge building.”

Scott’s face falls into something more neutral and pensive, and he leans back in his chair. “That’s a little bit heavy for only a handful of interactions. This isn’t gonna turn into another Lydia situation is it?”

Stiles gets up and nervously paces the length of his couch. “No, it’s nothing like _that._ Lydia was like the sun to me. This guy is like the moon, or a black hole – something with this weird pull that’s borderline ominous. There’s an air of _different_ surrounding him Scott. I can’t figure whatever it is out. Every time we get within arm’s length I feel this… _something_ , and it’s driving me up the wall.”

“What?”

“I don’t know!” Stiles exclaims as he falls back into the couch. “I don’t have a clue. That’s the problem.”

His best friend turns over his shoulder, responding to some faint call Stiles can’t quite make out. When he turns back his face is a mix of urgency and concern. “Maybe you should just leave it alone, Stiles. Judging by what you’ve told me, he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy you want to be caught alone with – or snooping after.”

~

Stiles flits about his apartment, collecting water buckets and unpacking the few lingering boxes in his living room. As he goes about his business a message flashes along the bottom of the TV screen he’d left playing for background noise, catching his attention. He sets down the toaster he’d been cradling and crouches to read the screen.

 

* **Authorities would like to advise all citizens to stay indoors after dark. This is the second suspicious death in what could be the line of many more. As such, a 10 p.m. curfew is in effect.***

 

After a few brief clips of the woods a woman appears on screen, serious yet willowy, and speaks to one of her field reporters.

**‘Tom, do you have any news for us over in Beacon Hills?’**

_‘Yes, Margaret, I do. Local authorities still won’t tell us much other than the standard warnings. However, I was able to glean that the victims seem to have been attacked by some sort of animal, possibly a mountain lion if the claw marks are indicative of anything.’_

**‘Wow.’**

_‘I know. Now, local park rangers are on the scene as well, and they seem to have set up a perimeter, but nothing has turned up yet. We’ll see just how effective this search is in the coming week.’_

Stiles falls from his crouch into a sitting position and huffs, “Gonna have to call dad about this.”

The surrounding area keeps getting weirder and weirder. First it was haunted apartments and creepy tenants and now it’s possible murders and curfews. Stiles would have something to say about bad omens and warning signs if it weren’t for the highly discounted rent and cozy job. One of which he’s going to be late for if he doesn’t hurry up.

“Shit,” he hisses as he scrambles to his feet. He’s dressed for the most part, but he grabs a maroon hoodie and an umbrella on the way out. He’s been rained on enough this month to know better than to leave without it.

As he steps out of the building he notes just how dark it is. He’s cutting it pretty close being out and about around curfew, but he has a valid reason. He’s headed to the hospital. It’s easier to paint a mural after hours. There aren’t as many people milling about the halls.

 _But_ , none of that makes him feel any less paranoid when he walks out into the dark parking lot beside his apartment. Each street lamp he passes is like a safe zone. He walks quickly between them, looking over his shoulder now and again, hoping there aren’t any rogue mountain lions prowling on the outskirts of the asphalt. Stiles heaves a sigh of relief when he makes it into his jeep and promptly locks his door. When his jeep stutters to life he loosens up even more, relieved to be heading to the hospital.

~

As soon as Stiles is through the doors to the pediatric unit, Scott’s mother, Melissa, has her arms around him, locking him tightly to her chest.

“Stiles! It’s been too long.”

A huff is squeezed out of him but he smiles, wrapping his arms around her in kind. “It’s only been a few months. You couldn’t have missed me that much.”

She backs away and flicks his ear. “I very much _did_ , and so have Scott and your father.”

“Yeah well, I’ve missed you guys too.” He shrugs, going for nonchalant or something.

Melissa rolls her eyes and nudges him with her elbow. “So, you’re an artist now?”

He snorts. “Something like that. At least for as long as it takes to get this mural finished up. Then I’m on to nurse duty like you. What happened, anyway – to the last painter?”

Melissa grimaces, looking over her shoulder briefly. “Left town. A lot of people have been lately.”

Stiles lifts an eyebrow and drifts toward the black outline on the wall facing the nursery. “Explain.”

“It’s nothing. At least it _seemed_ like nothing.” She frowns. “There’ve been a lot of animal attacks lately. _Bad_ animal attacks. There have never been so many this close to town, and on top of that people have been going missing.”

Stiles takes his jacket off and sets it on the ladder beside the mural, his mouth hanging ever so slightly. He takes a deep breath to say something – he’s not sure what – but before he can get a word out a handful of nurses rush past, scrambling for the ER. Both he and Melissa turn, catching the slightest glimpse of the ambulance lights outside.

“What’s been going on while I was gone?” he hazards, unsure if he wants to know.

Her pager chooses that moment to beep frantically, calling to her with its insistent jingle. She looks up, apologetic, and says, “A lot, unfortunately. Can’t talk now though. Oh, and _stay **out** of it_.” She shoots him a look before he can say anything in return and then heads toward the ER like everyone else on night shift – which isn’t actually saying much for this hospital, but still.

Scratching the back of his head, Stiles tries to piece together every little thing he’s heard in the past few weeks. Everyone he talked to had said Beacon Hills was as normal as ever – no new people in town and no massive arrests made with a healthy side serving of _boring as hell_. Apparently, everyone had been keeping it together for his sake. Or maybe for theirs.

Stiles looks back toward the ER for a moment and hums. After another few seconds he decides the mural can wait. Just for a minute or two. It’s not every day a handful of nurses are paged down to the ER; it’s just not necessary. Not in Beacon Hills anyway. So, whatever is going on, it’s _big_.

His cover story, if anyone asks, is that he wants to know what he’ll be dealing with when he starts working here. In reality, he’s only creeping toward those double doors to quell his burning curiosity. Curiosity _did_ kill the cat, though.

Stiles shakes his head, muttering to himself, “Satisfaction brought it _back_.”

Ten feet from the doors, Stiles is startled by the persistent screams of what he guesses is the latest patient. It’s a steady stream of, “ _Let me go! Let. Me. Go. It’ll find me here. It’ll find me. I can’t stay here!_ ” Then there’s a loud clang and what sounds like a slew of medical supplies flying onto the floor.

At five feet and approaching fast, Stiles hears one of the many nurses say, “ _Sir, please try to calm down. You’ve lost a lot of blood and if you keep thrashing around like that you’re bound to tear something else.”_

As Stiles peeks through the small, rectangular window on the door, he hears the groans of someone else who had previously been overshadowed by the shouting man. He can’t see anyone from where he stands, but what he does catch a glimpse of isn’t pretty. There’s a small dotted trail of blood leading to one of the curtained off sections of the ER, some of it smudged by hurried feet.

Just as he leans in to get a better grasp of the situation another loud crash sounds out into the otherwise silent hospital. Shortly after there’s a thud, and then a man rips the curtains aside.

He’s quite the sight. Terrifying actually, though it’s not his fault. The man’s shirt is torn in several places, he’s covered in blood, and he has the infamous 1000-yard stare thing going on. Add all that to the fact that he’s practically crawling away from a nurse, streaking blood all over the floor and, well – it’s something Stiles will probably have a nightmare or two about.

“ _You can’t keep me here! That **thing** , that thing will find me and **kill me**. I can’t stay. I can’t – I can’t, I –”_

Someone’s hand claps Stiles’ shoulder as he stares in abject horror. Given the circumstances and the fact that it’s almost eleven p.m. Stiles reserves the right to defend the unmanly squeak he lets out.

“Holy _shit_! What the f– _Dad_?”

His father lifts an eyebrow, his hands now poised on his hips. “What are you doing here?”

There’s an audible click when Stiles shuts his mouth. He rubs the back of his neck and smiles sheepishly. “Uh, just getting a feel for the hospital? Y’know, checking out my _new_ work environment.”

“Uh huh,” his father replies, obviously dubious. “I don’t recall you saying anything about being an ER nurse.”

“Yeah, well, they aren’t trauma nurses either,” Stiles mutters under his breath. As soon as his dad narrows his eyes Stiles coughs and says, “I mean. I’m not. I’m – I was just –”

“Save it.” His father sighs, put upon. “What have you heard so far?”

Stiles lets out a deep breath and loosens up. He looks back into the ER for a moment and says, “Uh, not much. Unless you count the delusions of a man that’s probably in hypovolemic shock.”

“Delusions?” The sheriff steps around Stiles, peering through the other small window beside him.

Shrugging, Stiles answers, “Yeah, the guy’s convinced something is gonna find him here and kill him.”

“Did he say who?”

“Not a who, a what.” Stiles turns back to his father. “He kept saying ‘ _it’s_ gonna find me, it’ll find me,’ like it was something intelligent but non-human. He could’ve meant a person, but that’s not the vibe I got.”

His father nods. “Hear anything else while you were ‘getting a feel’ for the environment?”

Blushing, Stiles says, “No – no, that was all. But, on the subject of hearing questionable stuff and seeing bloody men freaking out about weird things that go bump in the night – you wanna tell me what’s been going on while I was gone?”

His father’s face falls into something that’s more weary than stern and his gaze goes a little unfocused, not much unlike the 1000-yard stare of the bloody crawling guy. When he focuses back in on Stiles he says, “It’s a long story.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to sense that.” Stiles crosses his arms. “But, since everyone decided to keep me in the dark and _lie_ about being fine while I was gone, I think I at least deserve the abridged version.”

“Like you haven’t already hacked into the database to see for yourself,” his dad grumbles.

“You wound me,” Stiles says, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead. The sheriff bats a hand at Stiles’ chest making Stiles laugh. “I haven’t had the time to theoretically commit felonious acts – which I would never _ever_ do – so spill. _Please_.”

The sheriff rolls his eyes. “Why don’t you tell me what _you’ve_ heard.”

Stiles groans. “Fine. I heard on the news there’s been an increase in mountain lion attacks and that there’s a curfew effective immediately. And, just a few minutes ago, Melissa told me that people have been going missing.”

“That’s most of the abridged version,” The sheriff says with a frown. “Except, we’re not so sure it’s a mountain lion attacking these people. Unless mountain lions are suddenly capable of paralyzing their prey.”

“Paralyzing? What the –” Stiles looks back into the ER, down at the floor where there’s an even larger streak of blood and ghostly outlines of handprints being washed away by one of the nurses. “Then what _is_ killing these people if it’s not a mountain lion?”

“We don’t know, Stiles. That’s what’s making this so hard.”

Stiles bares his teeth and sucks in a deep breath. The air scrapes past them slowly. “I hate to make your night even worse, but – I’m pretty sure the guy I thought was crazy was attacked by whatever it is you’re looking for.”

His father scrunches his eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”

“ _Well_ , he was crawling across the ER floor a minute ago like he couldn’t walk. So, I’m gonna take a wild guess and say he was –”

“Paralyzed,” his dad finishes with a sigh.

“Yep,” Stiles answers, popping the p. “Sounds like tonight is shaping up to be a long one.”

~

_Local park rangers say that the sudden surge of missing persons may or may not be related to the rising number of animal attacks. Beacon County Sheriff, John Stilinski, was unable to be reached for comment, but we were told the station has all of their best men on the case. In light of the recent –_

Sighing, Stiles grabs the remote and turns the TV off. He stares at the blank screen for a moment before rubbing a hand over his face and getting up. Without the TV on his apartment, and all of the surrounding ones, are virtually silent. Maybe it’s because it’s raining again, or maybe it’s because everyone is scared. Either way, it’s mildly unsettling.

Stiles huffs to himself, not quite a laugh and not a sigh. “And here I thought all I’d have to worry about was a haunted house.”

He smirks, still a bit disbelieving. So far, the apartment building feels far from haunted. Especially when compared to everything going on outside of it – in the woods and on the outskirts of town. Those events don’t seem particularly supernatural to Stiles either though. They’re definitely _odd_ , but not otherworldly.

So, Stiles operates under the assumption that someone, not some _thing_ , is behind all of this. They’re the ones luring unsuspecting people into the forest before paralyzing them and leaving them for dead. He admits it’s a bit farfetched as far as plans to kill people go, and _wildly_ flawed. But, the alternative – that there’s some weird new animal or _creature_ lurking on the shadowy fringes of Beacon County – is not one he’s willing to accept just yet.  If there’s one thing Stiles won’t do, it’s blame something that undoubtedly has a simple explanation on higher, mysterious forces. He just has to find out what the simple explanation _is_. Which is quickly becoming harder than he expected it to be.

Stiles groans and heads toward his room, bothered by the reminder that he’s no closer to explaining what’s been happening in Beacon Hills than he was two weeks ago. And it’s not from a lack of information either. Between working at the hospital, news reports, and – in a _stunning_ turn of events – information from his father, Stiles has **plenty** of data to work with. Yet, he still can’t figure out a reasonable cause for what’s going on.

 _Maybe it **is** something supernatural_. He snorts almost immediately after the thought. _Ha, that’ll be the day. What would that even be like? Oh - Breaking News: vampires are running amok in Beacon Hills ever since the blood bank closed down and werewolf sightings have increased as we near the full moon._

Stiles chuckles to himself. “I should’ve been a writer.”

Moving on from the thought, Stiles grabs his laundry basket and tosses detergent, a lone dryer sheet, and his laptop into it on top of all his clothes. Seeing as the town’s problem is most likely _not_ of the otherworldly and, frankly, unbelievable variety, Stiles has got some research to do and some points to plot. He hefts the basket of clothes and rests it on his hip before heading down to the apartment’s laundry room.

The storm outside washes the walls of the apartment hallway in various shades of blue-grey. With each flash of lightning the trees surrounding the property are illuminated. Despite being on the third floor Stiles feels as though he’s being watched as he looks down into the pseudo forest. It’s just light enough out that he can see nothing is there, and yet…

Rolling his eyes, he shakes the feeling off. _You’re overreacting because of everything going on in town. Chill **out**._

Once in the laundry room, Stiles sets about shoving everything into the washing machine nearest the counter he usually situates himself on top of. It’s a blur of _t-shirt, sock, another sock but different, boxers, sweater_ for a few seconds and then Stiles is up on the counter, crisscross apple sauce with his laptop. When he wakes up his computer he sets about cataloguing some of the basic details of the case.

So far there have been four deaths of note and three missing person’s reports. Each of the deceased were locals, all in their early to mid-twenties at the latest, their gender seemingly unimportant. As for those missing, one was a man in his mid-forties – a swimming coach. Another was a thirty-something year old park ranger that had been on her rounds when she mysteriously vanished. The last was a teenager known for skipping town every once in a while – usually due to family troubles – so she wasn’t _officially_ counted as missing, though she was marked.

Stiles heaves a sigh and scratches the back of his neck. Pushing aside the fact that four people have died under very mysterious circumstances, two or three missing people on its own doesn’t seem like a very big deal. But, bring those four dead people back and add in the fact that Beacon County is not exactly a booming metropolis, and well… Let’s just say this has definitely been cause for a little bit of hysteria in town. And that doesn’t even begin to cover suspicious animal sightings and unsuccessful attempts on other people’s lives.

The only problem, aside from the obvious, is that there doesn’t seem to be any connection between the missing people, those attacked, and the dearly departed. There’s at least a general theme with those killed, same age, same life path, but those missing? They’re all completely different. Those attacked? Even more sporadic and confusing, and Stiles doesn’t even know whether or not he wants to add in suspicious animal deaths yet.

He heaves a sigh and shoves all the extraneous bits of info into separate corners in his mind for the time being. If he finds a connection he’ll be thrilled, but right now he needs to focus on trying to identify what’s killing twenty-something year olds and _why_.

Typing away at his keyboard, Stiles pulls up the medical examiner’s files for the first two victims. Both were found within walking distance of each other about two and a half months ago. The autopsy indicates there were multiple contusions on each victim, specifically around their necks, though no discernable print could be made from the bruises. Neither hand nor rope. The report goes on to list the _various_ lacerations on each victim. Stiles gets one look at the bodies and shudders, quickly shuffling the images to the side to keep reading.

He bites the skin around his thumbnail as he scans the files, picking up on assorted details like age (both victims were 26), background (college students), and other miscellaneous pieces of information like their jobs and next of kin. After getting a general feel for the two as people, Stiles backtracks to the autopsy report.  Everything about their injuries seems like it would lead to one specific cause of death, but he’s startled to find that the actual cause of death for both students is nothing like he expected.

_Immediate cause of death: Asphyxiation by drowning_

“They drowned?” Stiles mutters, confused. “That doesn’t make any sense, why would –” He stops in the middle of his thought, perturbed by something. The hairs on his arm raise and something like a chill shoots up his spine. He tears his eyes away from his laptop to identify the cause and finds himself staring directly into the electric blue eyes of Apartment 33.

This isn’t the first time Stiles has gotten some weird feeling only to look up or behind himself somewhere in the apartment building to find 33 glaring at him. It’s almost become commonplace. At first it only felt like a general sense of being watched, similar to when a friend tries to sneak up on you. But there was one day, when 33 and Stiles found themselves across from one another at their respective apartment doors that their eyes met, and Stiles felt like he’d been shocked.

Unfortunately for Stiles, it wasn’t in a kismet rom-com way. It _hurt_. He looked down at his hand to see if he’d shocked himself on something metal, but his hand was nowhere near his doorknob yet. When he looked back up Apartment 33 was already gone.

Ever since then Stiles has had an increasingly strong reaction whenever he and Apartment 33 are within a ten-foot radius of each other. Stiles would love to think that he’s just hyper vigilant, or that this is the product of being the sheriff’s son, but something tells him it’s not.

The washing machine beside him lets out an angry, pointed buzzing sound that snaps both Stiles and 33 from their weird staring contest. Stiles blinks rapidly and stretches the upset out of his muscles before he sets his laptop off to the side, slipping off the counter shortly after. His skin is still buzzing with a weird unsettled energy as he transfers everything over into the dryer nearest him, and Stiles half expects to catch 33 staring at him again when he turns back around. But he isn’t. Apartment 33 is being painfully normal, pulling black shirt after grey shirt after black shirt from his hamper before shoving all of them in the washing machine. If it wasn’t for the creepy, _I eat guys like you for breakfast_ vibe Stiles would almost think the guy _was_ normal. No one normal stares as much or as hard as this guy does though.

Stiles forces himself to look away before _he_ becomes the “creepy staring guy” and turns back to his things. It doesn’t take him long to get back into the correct frame of mind to go over the autopsy reports of some of the others. To his dismay, everything is the same from the lacerations and bruises down to the paralysis and death by drowning. Although, one of the latter reports (which, oddly enough, was the very first case) states that trace amounts of succinylcholine, a medical paralytic, was found in the victim’s blood stream. It’s the first thing that’s made any sense all day.

Stiles is just about to move on to theories based on this new piece of information when he hears, “Do you always mumble under your breath?”

Stiles tenses but looks up, his eyebrows scrunched. Again 33 is staring at him, so before Stiles can think better of it, he says, “I don’t know. Do you always look like a serial killer?”

Apartment 33 looks taken aback for all of two seconds and then his eyebrows are furrowed again as he says, “Can you keep your muttering to a minimum. I’m trying to read.”

“I was here first,” Stiles responds childishly.

“I’ve lived here longer, so technically _I_ was here first.”

Stiles snorts. “Real mature. And anyway, I can’t help it if I don’t notice it. I get kinda spacey when I read case files.”

“Case files?” 33 parrots.

Nodding, Stiles intones, “ _Yes_. Case files. The very files I was reading before you interrupted me.”

“You interrupted me,” his angry neighbor points out.

Stiles pinches the bridge of his nose, irritated. “Dude, put some headphones in if I’m bothering you that much. You don’t hear me complaining about how much you stare, do you?”

Apartment 33’s mouth clicks shut and, although Stiles didn’t think it was physically possible, the guy manages to look about ten times as pissed as he was before. He shuts the book in his hands, the sound a dull thunk, and gets up.

Stiles braces himself for a moment, thinking the man is about to come over, but instead 33 checks his clothes and leaves. He sends Stiles a pointed look on his way out. With that, Stiles lets out a small breath of relief and, because he has no self-preservation instinct, says rather loudly, “What were you reading anyway? A Steven King novel?”

He laughs to himself. “You look like you stepped right out of one.”

When his question goes unanswered for several beats he turns his attention back to his computer. The screen went black at some point during his argument with _He who refuses to be named_ and because of this Stiles finds his face mirrored back at him. He stares at it for a moment until a pink flyer on the corkboard in the reflection catches his eye.

Stiles turns around and grabs it, looking it over once it’s close enough. It has a picture of a dog and a cat side-by-side on the front, most likely a stock photo. Above the image are the words: _A.D. Veterinary Clinic. Make sure your furry family friend is up to date on all their vaccines._ And beneath the picture are the words: _Services offered for a wide variety of animals. If you have any questions, comments, or simply want to schedule an appointment, please take a slip from below._

Stiles tears one of the tabs off, an idea blooming. It wouldn’t hurt to go to the clinic to have a few of his questions about the recent animal attacks in the area answered. Dr. Alan Deaton’s clinic is the only one of any worth in Beacon County.

If anyone has any information about the animal responsible, it’s probably him. Stiles isn’t sure why he didn’t think of it earlier.


	2. Drowning in Clues

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know it's bad when you get scared reading your own writing at night by yourself, RIP. I forgot how nerve-wracking I made this.

Dr. Deaton’s vet clinic is a little out of the way. However, the distance makes sense once you figure out that “a wide variety of animals” includes big cats, coyotes, and the occasional black bear. It’s not the kind of place you want in the middle of town if there’s an incident. Still, it’s pretty unsettling driving out to the place at dusk, all while it’s drizzling.

Trees line either side of the one lane road leading out to the clinic, and there’s only a light post about every other mile. Stiles turns on his high beams and pretends that he isn’t scanning the tree line for a rogue beast every other minute. The park ranger had gone missing while she was driving around the edge of the preserve. Stiles obviously isn’t _that_ safe in his car.

He looks over at the baseball bat in his passenger seat and lets out a short breath. It’s bordering on decorative, small as it is, but it still comforts Stiles to know he has some line of defense other than his fists. His dad may have put him through a couple self-defense courses before he left for college, but he’s never actually put any of that muscle memory to use. Hitting an attacker with a large blunt object is, usually, easier than hand-to-hand combat. No matter how practiced.

Stiles huffs. _You’re overreacting. **Again**. It’s okay. It’s totally cool. Just because you’re of college age and in the Beacon County area that does **not** mean you’re going to get attacked and wind up dead in the forest somewhere._

Needless to say, he’s psyched himself out a bit by the time he makes it to Deaton’s. He thanks his lucky stars that yet another familiar face will be there to greet him though, because this case is starting to get to his head for some reason.

The animal clinic is pretty unassuming. It’s a quaint brick building with a small plaque by the door that reads, “Beacon Hills Animal Clinic.” The inside of the building is no more interesting. It’s freakishly cold and the walls in the waiting area are drab and colorless. Stiles knows from experience that the examination rooms are no better with their boring brick red walls and creepy, rectangular, unreachable windows. Being in there makes him feel like he’s trapped in a basement.

But everything in Beacon Hills is that way. Everything looks like it’s been plucked right out of the 1980’s – never updated or improved upon. Beacon Hills is that cliché, tiny little Podunk town that was established a hundred some odd years ago everyone talks about in passing. Like it’s nothing more than a whisper. Considering the meager population, it’s a miracle the tax revenue is even substantial enough for the city to fix the potholes on the streets.

Somehow, despite all of these things, Stiles still gravitates back to it. No matter what he does or how far he gets, he always comes back to Beacon Hills. He’d be lost without Scott though, so he figures it’s alright in the end despite the lack of change.

“Scotty, my boy, you in the back?” Stiles calls as he reaches the front desk. The rolling chair is unoccupied and the computer on the counter is idling. A swirl of colors dances across the otherwise blank screen.

After a few beats Stiles gets back, “Yeah! Hold on a sec, I’ll be right out.”

Scott pops out of the doors leading to the back clad in a lab coat and some rubber gloves. He pulls the gloves off and tosses them into the trash, and then he’s around the desk pulling Stiles into a tight embrace. “How’ve you been, man?”

Stiles squeezes him back and places a dramatic kiss on his friend’s cheek. “I’ve been okay. Getting used to my new digs and the job is all.”

Scott makes a face and rubs the area. “Yeah, my mom said you’ve been doing well at the hospital.”

Stiles snorts. “I’ve been painting a mural. I haven’t even started my rotations yet, and I’m sure it will be hell when I do.”

Scott waves a hand. “Whatever, dude. I’m sure you’ll do just fine. You wouldn’t have graduated at the top of your nursing class if you sucked.”

“If I sucked I’d probably be in the biohazard bin with the medical leeches.”

“Shut _up_.” Scott laughs as he rounds the corner to his desk. “ _Anyway_. What brings you here?”

Stiles leans on the counter and rests his head in his hands. “Believe it or not, I’m actually _not_ here to gaze lovingly into your eyes like we had planned. I’m looking for Deaton.”

Scott rolls his eyes. “He’s in his office working on something right now. Is it anything I can help with?”

Sighing, Stiles says, “Mm, maybe. It’s about the recent animal attacks. I had some questions I figured he could answer since I know next to nothing about the animal population in town.”

“Ah, then you probably _will_ want him. He’s been to at least two of the eight crime scenes, and at the station for questioning since we’ve had our fair share of mountain lions here.”

“Eight?” Stiles repeats, confused.

Scott clicks at something on the screen in front of him and begins typing, answering almost absent mindedly. “Yeah. Didn’t you hear about the latest attack? It literally happened just this morning, so I wouldn’t be surprised you haven’t, but… here.” He turns his screen around so that Stiles can read the headline from the digital copy of today’s newspaper.

 ** _Fifth animal attack victim found gutted in the Beacon Hills Preserve._** Below the rather gruesome title is a short blurb that says, “ _Law enforcement officers were hesitant to comment, but say that this is the fifth animal attack victim in as much as six months, aside from the other three missing persons cases currently unsolved. There is still no word as to why the attacks have become so frequent, but the local chapter of PETA claims it’s because of our encroachment on big cat territory. More on page 7._ ”

Stiles lets out a shaky sigh and pushes away from the counter. “They say anything about the victim?”

“Just that it was a female, aged 23, and that she worked at a rave warehouse or something.”

“Great,” Stiles huffs. “No connection to the others aside from her age.”

Scott shrugs. “You know more than I do. Lemme know if you need any more help though. Deaton’s office is down the hall, third door on the left.”

Stiles nods and pats the counter before heading down the hall. The fluorescent lights above him emit a steady hum and one at the end of the hall flickers every few seconds as though it’s about to give out. Once at the door to the vet’s personal office, Stiles gently raps his fingers against the glass pane that reads, “Dr. Alan Deaton, Animal Physician.”

When there’s no answer he calls out, “Hello? Dr. Deaton?”

He’s just about to push the door open when a hand settles on his shoulder. Stiles jumps, startled by the contact, and turns around. Luckily, the hand just so happens to belong to the very doctor he was looking for.

“Deaton. Hi.”

“Stiles,” the vet answers, his voice neutral in tone. “How can I help you?”

Scrubbing the back of his neck, Stiles says, “Uh, I was hoping that you could help me with a case I’m working on.”

Deaton tilts his head to the side as if trying to parse something out. “You work for the Sheriff’s department now?”

“Oh um, no. I don’t I, uh – I’m just helping my dad out. He’s been pretty busy with everything that’s been going on, so I figured I’d lend a hand.”

“I see,” Deaton replies, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly. The moment of scrutiny passes and then he steps past Stiles and into his office. “Come in.”

The office is, like everything else in the clinic, a bit dismal. There are certificates on the wall from the many colleges Deaton attended, a lone picture of himself and a woman with whom he shares some sort of familial resemblance, and a few motivational posters with cute animals on them. Most likely for the pet owners who visit rather than Deaton himself. Other than that, it’s a pretty modest office space.

Stiles sits down in the chair in front of Deaton’s desk and wipes his hands off on his jeans. He clears his throat and asks, “What do you know about the recent animal attacks?”

Deaton looks up from where he’d been adjusting things on his desk, his face next to unreadable. Guarded almost. He replies, “What do you want to know?” instead of answering. It’s standard Deaton behavior, answering one question with another.

“Uh… anything you’re willing to share? I’m just curious what your take on all of this is. Park rangers don’t seem to believe it was a mountain lion, or any other big cat for that matter, and I know you were consulted so –”

A small smirk plays at the lips of the vet. “You were wondering what I think it is.”

“Yeah,” Stiles breathes out in a rush. “Any theories, plausible or not, would be better than what I have to go with right now.”

“I’m afraid my theories about the animal responsible may not be any more formed than yours at this point, Mr. Stilinski. There hasn’t been much to go on.”

Stiles lets out a slow sigh. “Then what makes you think it’s not a mountain lion?”

Deaton drums his fingers on his desk, staring at Stiles as if _he’s_ some sort of unreadable map. It’s mildly unnerving, so Stiles is glad when the vet looks away to grab a book from one of the drawers in his desk. “I’m not sure if you know this or not, but there hasn’t been a confirmed mountain lion sighting in Beacon Hills for almost eight months.”

“Eight months? How is that possible?”

“There were never that many in the area to begin with. We may be in a rather favorable area for them with all of our trees and hills, but our deer population is quite small. There’s not much for them to hunt here.”

Stiles takes a deep breath and holds it in his chest before letting it out in a rush. “But, isn’t it possible that it _could_ be one? The deer population might not be substantial enough for a large number of mountain lions, but there have to be a few keeping the deer in check.”

Deaton sighs, as if bored. “A plausible theory, but hunters are the ones keeping the deer population at its current level – one of the many reasons we _don’t_ have big cats in the area. That aside, the tracks left at the crime scenes I visited were not those of a cat, nor any other predator known to California.”

“Uh…” Stiles opens his mouth and then closes it again. He lets a short breath out of his nose and then leans back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest. “Well then what _were_ the tracks from? Some animal from out of state?”

Deaton chuckles, but instead of sounding amused he sounds mildly condescending. “Allow me to rephrase. The tracks were unidentifiable altogether.” He pushes the book he’d grabbed earlier across the desk for Stiles to take. “This page here has the many variations of big cat tracks for the entire California area. Now, even if big cats from southern California managed to travel all the way _here_ , their tracks still don’t match those found at the scene.”

Stiles examines the page briefly, but the point has already been made so there’s really no need. He rubs a hand across his mouth and then wets his lips. “Okay. Then I have another question.”

Deaton lifts an eyebrow. “And that would be?”

“What kind of animals in the area would be able to paralyze a full-grown man?”

The vet smiles, like he’s in on some joke Stiles doesn’t know about. “Now _that_ is an interesting question. Why do you ask?”

Stiles rolls his eyes. He’d love to see the day Deaton is straight forward for once. “There’s been some evidence that the victims were paralyzed shortly before their deaths. Seeing as it’s not a mountain lion doing the paralyzing, and we have no human leads, I’ve gotta wonder if there’s something else in Beacon Hills I don’t know about that’s big, bad, and venomous.”

“There are plenty of big and bad things in Beacon County you don’t know about, Stiles.”

Stiles’ eyebrows fall in confusion. He’s used to Deaton saying weird things that border on patronizing, but every once in a while he says something that’s just plain unusual. Cryptic even. Stiles blinks rapidly and then asks, slowly, “But are there any capable of paralyzing humans?”

Deaton leans forward and rests his arms on the desk, carefully contemplating Stiles once again for a few tense seconds. Then all he says is, “I’m afraid not,” before sitting upright again. “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help to you.”

Stiles narrows his eyes. It definitely feels like there’s something that Deaton isn’t telling him, but he’s not quite sure what that something would be, or why Deaton would feel the need to be a roadblock. Regardless, Stiles lets it go for now, content to draw his own conclusions for the time being. He’ll find his way back to Deaton if he needs to.

Standing, Stiles offers his hand to the vet. “You were plenty helpful doc. Thanks for letting me take a little bit of your time.”

“It’s no trouble.”

When Deaton takes Stiles’ hand a shock is sent pulsing through it and up his arm. Stiles pulls his hand back immediately and waves it in the air to alleviate the buzzing feeling in his skin. “ _Ow,_ what the –” he clenches his jaw and holds his hand against his chest with the other.

“Remind me never to drag my feet in your office again,” Stiles mutters.

Deaton’s eyes are a lot more expressive when Stiles looks back up, though what emotion it is that they’re expressing Stiles couldn’t tell you. The vet steps around his desk and takes a deep breath, like he’s got something extremely important to say, but he lets it out slowly – no parting wisdom hidden in the exhale. Instead Deaton offers Stiles a small grin and says, “Come back if you find anything interesting. I’d love to hear about what animal is responsible.”

“… Yeah, sure thing,” Stiles says, looking back down at his hand. His skin is left thrumming in much the same way it does whenever Apartment 33 stares at him for too long. “See you around, Dr. D.”

“I’m sure you will,” the vet replies.

~

Stiles is about halfway back to his apartment when he realizes he’s about to run out of gas. It’s just like him to be so focused on everything else in his life that he forgets the little things, like how he told himself to get gas before he left. There’s no use in getting upset with himself now, it’s too late. But that doesn’t stop him from groaning as soon as he turns into a small, privately owned gas station about a mile later and finds it closed.

Lucky for him, the pumps are electronic, so Stiles can pay right there. It’s quiet underneath the metal awning covering the pumps, save the pitter patter of sporadic droplets of rain. Water steadily trickles off of one of the corners from the roof above and spills onto the pavement. Everything is so hushed Stiles actually feels mildly relaxed for a moment.

He inserts his card in the pump and enters his pin before pressing the button for his fuel grade. The pump shudders to life as he clutches the gas nozzle, humming to himself. Stiles’ tank is three quarters of the way full when he spots something out of the corner of his eye. It’s just a quick flash, could be nothing more than a fly passing through his periphery, but Stiles turns toward the movement anyway.

A subtle breeze makes its way across the parking lot and over Stiles’ body, leaving goosebumps in its wake, but he doesn’t see anything. Still, Stiles stops humming as he turns back to his jeep. The only sounds now are the _tick tick tick_ of the pump steadily doling out gasoline and the _pit pat drip_ of rain falling onto the asphalt. Stiles is just about to top off the tank when he sees it again. A flash of white. Or at least it looks like it from the corner of his eye, but how could he know?

Again, nothing is there when he turns, so he turns in the complete opposite direction hoping to find whatever it is sneaking up on him. He doesn’t catch anything except a drop of rain on his nose.

Stiles lets out a deep breath and rubs the water off his face. _This is why we take our Adderall, Stiles. You’re freaking out over droplets of water falling off of the roof. **Focus**. Relax._

He shakes his head to get rid of the intrusive thoughts and quickly puts the nozzle back in its place once his tank is full. Everything after that happens in rapid succession. He quickly tightens the screw cap on his tank, gets in the jeep, turns the key in the ignition, and flicks his lights on. As soon as he does, the high beams catch on something on the outskirts of the parking lot. Something shiny. He squints and sees that it’s not some random object, but two distinct orbs.

 _Eyes_ – taking on a glare because of Stiles’ headlights.

His skin ices over, the rain water finally getting to him now that the air conditioner in the car is on him. He hurriedly locks his doors, turns off the AC, and puts the car in drive. When he looks back up the shining eyes are gone.

_You’re seeing things. There was nothing there. Calm **down**._

Stiles peels out of the parking lot, anyway. Every once in a while, he glances at the bat sitting by his passenger seat. He _might_ be seeing things, but it’s never bad to err on the side of caution. Better safe than sorry, _right_?

He clears his throat and turns on the radio to drown out his thoughts. Still, they try to get the better of him. A nagging, _You’re 24 Stiles. There’s some sort of serial killer or animal going after twenty-something year olds. It’s not being paranoid if you’re basing your concerns on **facts**._

“Shut up,” he tells himself. “God you’re being ridicu–”

A deer darts out in front of Stiles’ jeep. He slams on the breaks and his tires screech and slip, all thanks to the rain. Somehow, he manages to stay on the road and merely taps the deer, causing it to stumble and fall.

He lets out a nervous laugh and mumbles, “Just a deer.”

The animal gets up on wobbly legs seconds later and slowly walks across the road. Stiles is just about to drive off, content that the buck is okay, when he notices four distinct gashes across the animal’s side. He doesn’t miss the slow and almost drunken gait the deer has either. Eventually it collapses just on the other side of the road.

Stiles’ grip tightens on the steering wheel as the radio sings, “ _A leopard, lion, wolf and mountain in my way – I’m coming up for light and comin’ out the cave…_ ” He turns the song down a bit and stares at the injured animal with sick curiosity. Common sense is screaming for him to stay in the car. Better yet, _leave_. This isn’t some hero movie he’s living in right now. This is starting to look like a thriller, and he’s right in the middle of something he should definitely get _out of_.

However, part of him wants to get out of the jeep and take note of what’s happening to the animal, try to save it. But he’s not a vet, and he’s not an idiot either. So, he does the next best thing and takes note of the mile marker and decides he’ll call it in to either his father or the local park rangers.

As soon as Stiles is back in Beacon Heights, in the parking lot of his apartment, he lets out a stuttered sigh. It takes him a few minutes to finally shut off the jeep, and another one to actually get _out_ , but eventually he shoves his keys into his coat pocket and grabs his bat, gripping it tightly as he walks toward the building.

It finally stopped raining somewhere in the middle of his drive. The ground is still damp though, and the smell of petrichor hangs heavily in the air. As for the clouds above, they rumble occasionally, lighting up a faint purple as a storm brews within – contained for the time being. But… something still feels off in the air. Everything around Stiles feels charged and ready to pop, as if the lightning is about to strike at any moment.

 _Drip_. A stray drop of rain falls before him. Loud, as if amplified.

 _Tsssst._ Leaves rustle, brushed together in song by the wind.

 _Step, step, step._ Stiles’ feet hit the pavement.

 _Clink. Clank._ A glass bottle is disturbed, kicked by something.

Everything goes quiet then. There’s no wind, no movement in the leaves, no breathing. Stiles can hear the blood rushing in his ears. He falters for a moment but then picks up his pace, frightened by a movement he catches in the corner of his eye. A second set of steps sound out in the parking lot, just barely out of line with his own, like an echo. The door to the apartment building stairwell is right there. Just a few yards away now.

Seven yards.

Four yards.

Just five more feet…

Stiles practically moans in relief when he reaches the side door of the building. He frantically makes his way up the steps, just barely to the first official floor when he hears the door below slowly creak open and then click shut. He chances a look down and catches a black-hooded figure making their way up the stairs.

He doesn’t stick around to see what else they’re wearing, where they’re going, or what they’re after. Instead, he takes the stairs two at a time, sometimes three, and pretends that his heart isn’t currently in his throat.

The hair on the back of his neck stands on end and his senses are practically screaming danger, _danger_ , **_danger_**. The foreign set of steps sound like they’re getting closer, like whoever is following him is catching up, and quickly. Bile rises in Stiles’ throat, his anxiety rampant and growing steadily. He makes it to the door for the third living floor, and it feels as if the foreign presence is now breathing down his neck.

Stiles doesn’t think he can make it to his door in time _and_ unlock it, so he hides around the corner after slipping into the third floor corridor, twisting his hands around his bat. As soon as Stiles hears the stairwell door open and shut, the faint footsteps of the intruder, _their breathing_ , he jumps out.

He’s just about to strike when he realizes – this is _not_ the droid he’s looking for.

“Apartment 33?” Stiles huffs incredulously. He peers around the menacing, but very much non-hooded man, and finds nothing. No one.

Mr. Murder Brows looks startled for a quick and fleeting moment, then he assumes his usual glare and hisses, “What the hell are you doing?”

Stiles loosens up and drops his arms once he realizes no one else is coming through those doors. He lets out a shaky breath and looks back at his slightly ruffled neighbor. “I – someone was following me. Someone in a hood.”

33 clenches his jaw and looks over his shoulder. He’s quiet for a moment, as if listening, and then he turns back to Stiles. “What exactly were you going to do if you saw this hooded figure; beat them? What if they live here?”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Don’t patronize me right now. I felt like I was being followed _way_ before I got here, okay?”

After a loud and put upon sigh Apartment 33 says, rather loftily, “There’s no one else here besides us. No hooded person, or would-be stalker. You’re probably just seeing things.”

Stiles looks up then, eyes narrowed. “Don’t do that.”

“What?” 33 asks, slightly defensive.

“Invalidate me. You don’t know what I did or didn’t see,” Stiles spits back. He closes his eyes and clenches his teeth together, then lets out an exasperated breath and holds up a hand. “Forget it. I’m so not getting into this with some stranger right now.”

Stiles turns around and heads for his apartment, shoving his key into its lock with shaky fingers. As soon as there’s enough room for him to slip into his apartment, he’s in and the door is slammed shut behind him.

Sliding down said door, Stiles drops his bat. The sound it makes as it hits the hardwood floor is loud and somewhat high-pitched. Hollow. Just like his chest feels. “I know what I saw,” Stiles mutters to himself as he rubs the heels of his palms over his eyes. “I know what I felt.”

~

“Mile marker 16. Yeah, that’s – no it was only a deer.” Stiles bites his thumbnail as he steadily paces back and forth in his loft. His dad is on the other side of the line, on the phone in his office.

The sheriff lets out a long and drawn out sigh. He sounds worn out. “ _And why do you want me to send someone out there to go check on this – deer?_ ”

Stiles huffs. “Because it had been attacked by something. _Clawed_ to be specific. It collapsed on the other side of the road like it was paralyzed. It just kinda stopped being able to walk.”

“ _That **does** happen to animals when they’ve been attacked._ ”

Stiles groans. “No, dad, it’s not like the buck had been clawed half to death. The marks were borderline superficial, but it was acting like a fawn that had just learned how to walk.”

His dad tunes out for a moment, addressing one of his deputies most likely, and then comes back to say, “ _Fine, let’s say I agree. Why would I follow that lead and not the one with the man from the hospital – the one you said was most likely attacked by the thing we’re looking for?_ ”

“Because,” Stiles begins as he heads for his laptop. There’s a brief pause as he opens up his notes. “I talked to some of the nurses who treated him a few days ago. The ‘thing’ he’d been attacked by was apparently some deranged man in the middle of a psychotic break. Not an animal or a practiced killer.”

“ _Then how do you explain the paralysis? The gashes?_ ”

Scratching his eyebrow, Stiles answers, “Easy. He said the man came at him with a knife or something. He wasn’t exactly sure because it was dark out. When he got to the hospital he was in hypovolemic shock – symptoms of which can include confusion and anxiety – so that’s why he was freaking out. Well, that and the fact that they had brought the man who attacked him in as well.”

“ _That still doesn’t answer my question about the paralysis,_ ” his dad says.

“Blame that on the blood loss too. Motor functions can be severely impaired if there’s enough blood lost. His limbs probably went numb.”

After letting out a quick breath, the sheriff says, “ _Alright. So the deer is probably our best piece of evidence right now._ ”

“More like your _only_ piece of evidence.”

“ _I wouldn’t say that_ ,” his dad cuts in. “ _You said there were traces of – what was it – succinyl something or other in the victims’ bloodstreams, right?_ ”

Stiles smirks. “Succinylcholine. It’s one of a handful of medical paralytics used in surgeries and procedures, but it was only found in **one** victim. Definitively, anyway.”

“ _Yeah, that. Well whatever that is, it’s one more piece of the puzzle than we had before._ ”

“I know, I know, but there’s still nothing connecting the vi–” The sound of glass shattering pulls Stiles from the conversation. It’s loud enough to catch his attention but muffled enough for him to realize it’s coming from outside. Then the power goes out.

“ _Stiles?_ ”

Stiles blinks and comes back to the conversation, but he’s only half invested as more glass shatters. “Hey, sorry. Uh, I’m gonna call you back, okay?”

“ _Is everything alright?_ ” His dad asks, clearly concerned.

“I’ll let you know,” Stiles mumbles, his mind already three steps ahead.

“ _Stiles_ ,” his dad warns. “ _What’s going on?_ ”

Bat in hand, Stiles slowly moves towards his door. He whispers, “Nothing, it’s fine. I gotta go though. I’ll call you back.”

At his father’s increasingly worried orders to stay put, Stiles says, “Sure thing, love you _byyyyye_.”

Of course, Stiles does the exact opposite of that. He ends the call, shoves the phone in his back pocket, and looks out of the peephole in his door. When he’s satisfied there’s no one in the hall that he can see, he peels his door open just a bit and peaks out of it.

Still nothing.

All that’s there are the emergency lights being powered by the backup generator and the bright red exit sign at one end of the hall. Stiles steps out into the hall and strains his ears to hear what’s going on. It all seems to be coming from the floor below him. Frantic screams, blunt banging sounds.

He’s so focused on everything below him that he doesn’t hear one of the apartment doors on his own floor open. And Stiles definitely doesn’t hear Apartment 33 come up behind him, which is probably why the guy gets the jump on him.

He has a hand over Stiles’ mouth in an instant, shushing him – as if Stiles was talking. Then he says, in the faintest voice imaginable, “Be quiet,” like his hand isn’t currently clamped over Stiles’ mouth.

Stiles elbows 33 in the ribs and bites his hand, or tries at least. “What the _hell_ , dude?” he whispers harshly when his mouth is free. Stiles tries to wriggle out of the man’s grasp, but 33’s arms tighten around his midsection.

“Shut _up_ ,” the man hisses. “What are you even doing out here?”

Stiles stills immediately, mouth slack in disbelief. “Are you fucking – I could ask you the same thing!” he whispers again, this time a bit more emphatic.

“ _Shhhh_.”

Stiles gives up on fighting his way out of the man’s grasp and rolls his eyes. He listens back in on the floor below, but it’s silent now. Eerily still. There’s a few beats where all there is is the sound of 33’s breathing and Stiles’ own heartbeat. They’re so close right now that the man’s warm breath fans out across the back of Stiles’ neck.

Stiles is about to say something about personal space when the elevator at the opposite end of the hall pings and its doors open sluggishly. Stiles can’t see any of this though, he can only assume that’s what those sounds indicate. He had been headed toward the stairwell when he was ambushed by his increasingly strange neighbor.

He wants to get a better look, but as soon as he moves even the slightest bit 33’s arms tighten even further. With a slight wheeze, Stiles murmurs, “I can’t breathe when you squeeze me like that.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” 33 warns him quietly.

Stiles is halfway through wondering whether the guy means _don’t breathe_ or _stop trying to look_ when he hears a low hissing sound. And nothing mechanical either; it sounds more like a large snake. _Very_ large.

“It will hear you,” 33 says, his voice just barely carrying to Stiles’ ears.

The whole thing is a little surreal. Stiles is pressed up against a man he was arguing with in a laundromat not more than twenty-four hours ago, and now they’re both hiding from some freaky intruder that likes to _hiss_ in its spare time? Needless to say, this isn’t exactly how Stiles saw his day going. Or any of his week for that matter.

He clears those thoughts from his mind and, almost under his breath, asks, “It?”

His neighbor doesn’t answer. Instead, 33 slowly unravels his arms from around Stiles’ waist and slinks to the side. Stiles panics and grabs the man’s shirt, halting him. The last thing he wants right now is to be left alone.

When 33 turns he’s glaring as usual, but what’s _un_ usual are his eyes. They look similar to when a light is shone on a cat’s eyes. There’s no _way_ they’re that bright, right? There isn’t even enough lighting in the hall.

Stiles is mesmerized for all of two seconds before he mouths, “ _What the hell are you doing?_ ”

Apartment 33’s gaze sharpens as he looks down at where Stiles is holding onto him. He looks back up and pointedly raises his eyebrows, as if to say, _move your hand, **now**._

Stiles is just about to mouth, _no!_ and, _you’re an idiot_ , but his phone rings before he gets the chance. His phone that he didn’t put on silent today because he wasn’t at the hospital and didn’t need to. His iPhone that is currently blaring the “Alarm” ringtone that he set for his father so he wouldn’t miss his calls. The ringtone he’s _really_ regretting right now as Apartment 33’s eyes widen in horror.

The hissing sound ramps up about six notches and 33’s eyes – glint red? Stiles is definitely seeing things in his moment of panic. Just like he must also be imagining Apartment 33 round the corner to face whatever hissing thing is currently in the 3rd floor corridor.

Stiles might have come out to see what was going on, but fighting large hissing animals is not in his field of expertise. Honestly, fighting _people_ is barely in there, and it wasn’t his intention to do so in the first place. He just wanted to see what was happening!

Groaning, Stiles looks up toward the red exit sign. He closes his eyes for a moment, counts to five to steady himself, and then follows his idiot of a neighbor. Even if the guy _is_ built, there’s no way he can stand up to whatever is waiting for them alone.

As soon as Stiles rounds the corner he sees Apartment 33 standing in the middle of the hallway, legs spread apart as if he’s readying himself to spring forward and fight. But Stiles can’t quite make out whatever it is that’s just a bit further down the hall – whatever it is that must be hissing. He can tell that it’s huge, though.

The odd thing is, it’s roughly the shape of a man, and _standing_. At least it _was_ the first few seconds Stiles looked at it, but now it’s on all fours and moving towards Mr. I have HORRIBLE ideas. Stiles winces, half expecting to see his neighbor get slammed into a wall, but the man darts out of the way at the last second and then charges the beast from behind. The beast out maneuvers him, and 33 is quickly sent skidding back towards Stiles. He grunts as his back hits the floor.

“What are you _doing_?” Stiles all but yells.

Almost immediately, the thing looks up from where it was glaring at 33 and into Stiles’ eyes. Everything slows down exponentially in that moment. Stiles feels fixed in place, entranced in the worst of ways. He’s never seen such yellow eyes before, or such weird skin.

He’s snapped from his momentary stupor as the _thing_ hisses and charges again. Stiles has his bat at the ready in an instant, but his neighbor is up and fighting again before Stiles can so much as swing, much to his growing surprise and interest.

His neighbor should be woefully outmatched by whatever this lizard thing is – it has a _tail_ – but somehow Apartment 33 hardly seems phased. In fact, the guy is fast. Unnaturally so.

Just like the lizard creature that _totally slipped away again_. _Shit._

33 turns and yells, “Run!” but all Stiles can do is duck at the arm that swings for him, hit the weird ass animal in the side with his bat, and dart out of the way right before the tail comes swinging at him.

Luckily for Stiles, his neighbor is back in between him and the lizard thing before anything else can happen. Stiles is almost content to let 33 handle the situation because he _seems_ to have it under wraps, but then he sees the claws.

“What the _fuck_! 33 – whatever your name is, watch out!”

Stiles nervously jitters in place. It would be better if he could _help_. All he’s doing now is watching his neighbor and the beast exchange blows. But his neighbor is starting to slow down, and those claws are getting closer and closer to hitting their mark. So much closer that Stiles pushes his neighbor out of the way at the last second.

It’s all instinct and no thought, and Stiles pays the price for his reflexive need to keep others out of harm’s way. He lets out a sharp hiss of his own as the pain etches itself across his ribs, but somehow he still has the presence of mind to hit the lizard thing in the head. It’s momentarily stunned, enough so that Stiles gets in one more blow.

After that everything around him gets a little wobbly, his vision greying at the edges. Then legs start to feel fuzzy, like when you’ve crossed them for too long and they fall asleep. Oddly enough, _that’s_ when Stiles has his moment of clarity – when his consciousness is threatened.

He says, “ _Nuts_. **This** is the thing that’s been killing people?” as he staggers to the nearest wall to prop himself up. At this point the numbness has worked its way up to his ribs, and he can’t feel the claw marks on his abdomen anymore, which is both wonderful and horrifying.

His vision starts to ebb and flow until he hears, “Do **not** pass out on me.” Most likely from his death-wish-having neighbor.

Stiles groans and slides against the wall. “Watch out for – for the claws. Paralyze – S’a Paralytic. Fuck… my hands.” His bat falls out of his grasp just as he hears a pained groan. He turns to follow the sound, fights to stay conscious, and finds his neighbor holding each of the lizard’s arms.

Stiles doesn’t know how much he can trust what he’s seeing. After all, he’s watching a grumpy guy with zero social skills fight a lizard. Then again, Stiles couldn’t make that shit up if he tried.

Part of him wants to laugh, but he’s terrified, both that he’s losing it and that, if this **_is_** real, his neighbor is going to be paralyzed soon too.

Stiles isn’t particularly religious, but he finds himself praying to _whoever_ is listening that his wildly reckless neighbor – with claws? no, that can’t be right, those are the lizard’s – will be the one that wins. He’d love to stay awake and find out, but the hall feels like it’s spinning now, and he can’t feel most of his body.

Distantly, the sound of glass shattering registers in his mind followed by a high-pitched screeching. The last thing his blurry eyes register are two bright red circles staring down at him and a low rumbling sound.


	3. There's no I in TEAM

Outside, the last vestiges of the storm have faded, and the sun hangs high in the sky, though not quite at its peak. Birds chatter incessantly and flit between branches that fail to hide much, if anything – all their leaves now scattered about the ground. Overall, it’s a welcoming Autumn day, but Stiles isn’t aware of this. That might be why he gasps himself into consciousness and then groans immediately when his sudden movements cause pain to tear across his side.

Stiles’ skin is covered in a thin sheen of sweat brought on by a nightmare, but his skin is clammy to the touch. Panicked, he looks down at his side where the stabbing pain has receded into more of an irritated throbbing only to find a big white square of gauze that’s framed by masking tape.

 _Not a dream,_ Stiles thinks bitterly as he counts his fingers. He carefully presses a hand to the area and, predictably, the muscles surrounding it jump in protest. Stiles lets out a small sigh and rubs a shaky hand over his face and into his hair. The residual panic from his dream is quick to creep up his arms and feet and settle itself right on top of his chest, making breathing that much harder.

 _No, not now. **Not now**_ , Stiles thinks. He refuses to have a panic attack right now, not when he’s moments away from being… _Wait_.

He’s not – in the hall anymore. And – it’s not night anymore.

_What the –_

Stiles looks down at himself again and finally absorbs the fact that he’s in his apartment – he’s in his _bed_ – but he has no recollection of how he got here. He most certainly didn’t patch himself up either, but that’s unsettling for different reasons.

A few rooms over, a cupboard opens and then shuts. Suddenly Stiles’ skin is on fire all over again, buzzing almost. He quickly scans his room for blunt objects and settles on his crosse from high school. He’s in no shape to fight, feeble as he’s feeling right now, but he will if he has to.

Pain radiates across Stiles’ left side as he bends to retrieve the projectile-to-be, but he quickly regains his composure and tiptoes into the hallway leading to the living area where all his easels are out. Peering around the corner affords him nothing, so he slowly steps out, keeping an eye out when he can.

Another cupboard creaks open and Stiles’ heart races, making a valiant effort to crawl up his throat. Pushing aside the fear, Stiles steels himself and makes his way to the kitchen entry. As soon as he gathers himself he rushes around the frame, crosse raised, and – _gets_ _ambushed_.

“ _You_ again?” Stiles croaks as he stares into blue-green- _whatever_ eyes. His would-be weapon is on the floor now, knocked out of his hand, and one of his wrists is pinned to the wall by Apartment 33.

Out of irritation, Stiles jabs the man in the solar plexus with his free hand. It probably hurts him more than it hurts Mr. abs of fucking _steel_ because his neighbor barely flinches, he only withdraws from Stiles’ space.

“Ugh. What are you doing in here?” Stiles asks breathlessly, inching toward the crosse while flexing his hand. “And what the hell happened last night?”

Apartment 33 lifts an eyebrow and looks down at the stick on the floor then back up at Stiles. “You really need to stop attacking people with sports equipment.” His voice has an edge to it, like a teacher reprimanding a child.

“Answer my question,” Stiles fires back as he skirts around the edge of the kitchen, now moving toward the knives instead.

His neighbor’s eyes narrow, as if he can sense this. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

Stiles laughs then, a tad on the hysterical side. He only regrets it a little when it pulls at his wound. “I don’t even know your name. I don’t know _you_ or what’s going on, so excuse me if I don’t believe that.”

As soon as Stiles tries to make a go for the butcher’s knife, Apartment 33 is in his space again. Stiles _blinked_ and he was just – there. The man’s eyes burn red for an almost imperceptible space of time, fading into a sharp blue after a moment. It would be comforting if the blue looked at all human.

Stiles’ heart stutters and he loses his breath for a second. Still he manages to wonder, “What are you?”

His neighbor backs away _again_ as if burned, leaving Stiles to hazard a glance at the knives again. It’d be pretty easy for Stiles to grab a knife right now and – and… Stiles sighs and lets the back of his head hit the kitchen wall. If 33 were going to kill him he would’ve done it by now.

Rolling his eyes, Stiles turns back to his decidedly inhuman neighbor and says, “Look, the least you could do right now is give me your name.”

“Derek,” His neighbor says, or rather – mumbles. Stiles almost misses it.

He pushes himself off the kitchen wall and lets out a deep breath before trying out the name on his tongue. “Derek… Okay, _Derek_ , you wanna explain what the fuck is going on? I’m gonna assume you know since you’re obviously not human.”

“What makes you think I’m not human?” Derek asks as he turns back around, his voice just shy of cutting.

Stiles lifts an eyebrow and looks down at the gauze on his ribs, then back up. “Seeing as you kept up with a freakish lizard beast like it was nothing, both physically and mentally, there are only two explanations. One, you’re crazy and on steroids. Two, you’re crazy and not human either.”

His neighbor lets out a derisive snort. “ _Obviously_. By that logic I could say the same about you. You hit the kanima with a _bat_.”

“Kanima?” Stiles repeats, confused. His neighbor winces slightly and his eyes gleam again, turning inhumanly bright.

Stiles’ eyes widen and he points animatedly. “That right there! That’s another reason.”

“What?” Derek the not-human neighbor asks, wary.

“Your eyes. They keep doing this weird flashy thing where they turn bright blue.”

“My eyes _are_ blue,” he deadpans.

Stiles grits his teeth together, staying the curses he so desperately wants to hurl at Derek. “You _know_ what I mean.”

Derek sighs, pained. “Let’s say I’m not human –”

“You’re obviously _not_.”

“Why would I tell you what I was?” Derek continues over him.

Stiles scrunches his eyebrows. “Because I saved your life and got _maimed_ for you, maybe? And you’re in my house! Why are you even here, anyway?”

Eyeing Stiles carefully, Derek says, “I wanted to make sure you were okay, and since that’s settled I can leave.” He quickly makes his way out of the room like nothing happened, missing Stiles’ look of utter disbelief.

“Oh no you don’t,” Stiles squawks, darting out of the kitchen after him. He nearly takes an easel down as he rounds the corner. “What are you? And what the hell is a kanima?”

“Stay out of it,” Derek says curtly. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“The hell it doesn’t.” Stiles storms ahead and puts a hand on his door, staring Derek down. “First of all, the day I drop something I’ve already invested time in is the day hell freezes over. Second, you don’t get to tell me what to do, you don’t even know me. And _third_ , this is personal now. So, you can either fill me in or I’ll find out on my own.”

Derek narrows his eyes and steps forward, boxing Stiles against the wall with his sharp gaze alone. “If you know what’s good for you, you _will_ drop this.”

Stiles’ heart speeds up, but he narrows his eyes right back and grits out, “See if I ever save your weird, glowy-eyed ass again. I’m not letting this go.”

His neighbor lets out an irritated huff and backs away. “Whatever. It’s your funeral.”

“Actually, it isn’t,” Stiles snaps. “It’s five other funerals, maybe eight if those three missing people aren’t really _missing_. So, whatever it is you think you’re doing to protect me or anyone else – _it’s not working_.”

His neighbor growls, honest to god _growls_ , and says, “Maybe that’s because people like _you_ keep getting in the way.”

Stiles lets out an exasperated sigh and opens the front door. “Okay, fine. This is obviously falling on deaf ears. When the next person dies, because the police obviously don’t realize they’re looking for a supernatural **_lizard_** , I want you to remember how fucking stubborn you were being just now.”

Derek stalks out but hovers in the doorway at the last second. “And what, I’m supposed to tell the police I saw the killer, and that it’s a lizard?” He lets out a dry laugh. “I’m sure that’ll go over well.”

Stiles pushes him the rest of the way out of the door and hisses, “ _No_. You’re supposed to realize you can’t solve a puzzle without all of the **_pieces_** ,” right before he slams the door.

He rests his head against the off-white wood and lets out a low and drawn out groan. He only comes back to himself when a dull throbbing in his side pulls his attention downward.

Stiles lets out a defeated laugh. “Of _course._ I fucking opened up my cuts.”

The dull throb turns into a sharp ache as blood soaks through the previously pristine looking gauze. Stiles thumps his head against the door a few times and then slowly slides downward, letting out a faint hiccup as he goes.

Now that Derek is gone, everything is catching up. The night before, the fact that monsters are _real_. The cool sensation of blood trickling down Stiles’ side doesn’t even register because of the narrowing of every point in his chest. Everything is simultaneously unreal and all too tangible.

What’s funny is that Stiles’ heart is racing faster now than it was last night. Even worse is that he’s completely in control of his body yet, somehow, not at all.

Stiles rolls himself onto his side and takes in jagged lungfuls of air, hiccupping whenever he doesn’t quite manage it. The whole ordeal makes him dizzy, and he eventually ends up flat on the floor.

It takes Stiles a while to come back to himself, and when he does he’s both embarrassed and thankful he didn’t pass out this time. He wipes any evidence of weakness from his eyes and slowly pulls himself to his feet.

When he makes it to the bathroom he cleans himself up the best he can and tries not to gag when the gauze sticks to his wounds as he tries to pull it off. He works through cleaning the gashes as quickly as possible and studiously ignores how pale he looks.

_Today can’t possibly get any worse._

Unfortunately for Stiles, his day definitely isn’t getting any better either. That horrible feeling in his stomach swoops back in, full force, when he heads back to his room and sees **_17_** missed calls from his father on his phone. Suddenly the gashes in his side feel like the least of his worries.

How he slept through all of those calls is a mystery for all of two seconds. As soon as he picks up his phone he sees that the button on the left has been flicked backward, effectively silencing it. He rolls his eyes.

 **_Derek_ ** _._

Stiles is just about to unlock the cellphone when it flares to life in his palm, buzzing frantically. A picture of a squad car with its lights ablaze pops onto the screen and Stiles freezes. He doesn’t want to make it 18 missed calls, but he’s not sure he wants to hear what his father’s gonna have to say.

The decision is taken from his hands as a series of demanding knocks sound out against his front door. Stiles sends a plea heavenward and quickly grabs a shirt to throw on. He picks something dark just in case he starts bleeding again. Worse comes to worse, he decides he can just say he was painting with his shirt off and _that’s_ why there’s something wet sticking to his shirt. Wouldn’t be the first time Stiles painted shirtless _or_ fed his father a flimsy lie.

Taking one last steadying breath, Stiles opens the door and sends his dad a quick smile. “ _Heyyy,_ dad. What’s uh – what’s up?”

The sheriff crosses his arms, and it’s made all the worse once Stiles realizes he’s in uniform. He winces just as his dad says, “You weren’t answering my calls. Then _I_ got a call saying there was a break in at an apartment over in Beacon Heights and that several were injured.”

Stiles grimaces and drops his hand. “Yeah I – I heard something.”

His father lifts an eyebrow. About 80% of the sheriff’s posture says disapproval, but the other 20% says paternal concern. A very heavy concern that Stiles is all too familiar with. He braces himself for the worst, flinching when his father’s tone is thick as gravel. “You didn’t think to call me back to let me know you were okay? Stiles, there’s a whole sheet of broken glass not more than twenty feet from your door. What _happened_?”

What happened… _Ha_. Ain’t that the question of the day?

Explaining what he saw last night is completely out of the question. If Stiles’ father didn’t think he was completely insane, he’d be gathering a team to hunt that lizard thing down _yesterday_. It’s a no-win situation.

So, just like in high school when Stiles was out drinking when he shouldn’t have been, he comes up with a relatively plausible lie for his whereabouts the night before. It’s embarrassing on his part which makes it all the more realistic. Or he hopes at least. “See, I _would_ have called you back if I could have.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Stiles groans and shakes one of his hands. “No I – it wasn’t because of whoever broke in, I never saw them.” _Lies_. “Not for lack of trying though. I was headed down the side stairwell over there and I tripped and hit my head. Totally blacked out. My neighbor across the hall brought me back up.”

At his father’s narrowed eyed stare, Stiles adds, “You can go ask him if you want.” He bites at the inside of his cheek, hoping to god his father doesn’t try to talk to _Derek_ , and silently counts to ten.

He makes it to nine when his father sighs away some of the tension in his body. “Kid you had me worried sick.” The sheriff steps forward and reaches for Stiles’ head to check on it.

Stiles jerks backward and gently rests a hand over it. He winces dramatically and says, “It’s fine, just – just don’t touch it right now. It’s still sore.”

Suspicious but unwilling to press it, his father says, “Okay, but you should go get checked out with Melissa. I don’t want you walking around with a concussion.”

“Dad, I think I could tell if I had a concussion or not by now. If not because of lacrosse, then because of those five years I spent in school to be a _nurse_.” He pushes his door the rest of the way open and gestures for his dad to come in.

For whatever reason, the deities are shining down on Stiles in that moment because his father shakes his head and says, “I need to wrap up downstairs. There was a woman who was hurt pretty badly. Do me a favor and keep your nose out of this one.” He takes another look at Stiles and finishes with, “Wouldn’t want you hitting your head again.”

Stiles swallows and somehow it doesn’t get caught in his throat. He gives his father a quick nod. “Got it. I have work today anyway.”

“Uh huh,” his father huffs before walking back down the hall.

Stiles pokes his head out and watches him go. The sheriff’s posture is stiff and commanding once more, even when he reaches out to press the down button for the elevator. Once the doors open the sheriff steps in and shoots Stiles a look when he catches him watching. Stiles bares his teeth in what he means to be a smile, but it probably looks as forced as it feels. He waves awkwardly until the elevator doors close and then takes a look at the deputies milling in the hallway.

So – maybe the work bit was a fib. Stiles technically doesn’t have work until to _night_ , but the real lie is that he’s going to keep his nose out of this. Not only is this personal, Stiles’ interest is piqued. Apparently, there _are_ other animals in California. Distantly, Stiles wonders if Deaton knows about this giant lizard person traipsing around the edges of Beacon County. Probably not.

Sighing, Stiles glances at the broken window. There’s a faint trace of glass at the edge of the frame that sparkles in the morning sun. Of the three giant panes of glass that make up a rather generous portion of the wall between Stiles’ apartment, 34, and the next, 36, the one closest to 36 is smashed to bits. There’s a small portion of glass on the floor and a corner at the top hanging on for dear life, but other than that, the rest must be three stories down in the grass below.

Stiles brushes a hand over the goosebumps that come to life on his skin and silently questions what happened to that lizard thing. From his conversation with Derek alone, Stiles knows that the kanima isn’t dead.

He looks from the window to Derek’s door and frowns. There’s obviously not much more he’ll be able to pull from Derek the suspicious not-human anytime soon, so Stiles is going to have to do some good old-fashioned research. And not that surface level Wikipedia page nonsense where he occasionally makes it to one of those credible sources that has amazing info.

He takes one last look at his neighbor’s door and sighs, shutting his own shortly after. Taking a better look at the hallway isn’t an option right now, as much as he wants it to be. Between the deputies crawling around and the fact that his father is only a floor below, Stiles is pretty much barred from investigating the scene of the crime any time this morning.

Today hasn’t even really begun and Stiles already feels like he’s out of his depth. The only thing he _can_ do right now is try to figure out what the hell a _kanima_ is. Obviously it’s a lizard person – but its motives and abilities are lost on Stiles. He pauses beside his easels. Supernatural creatures have motives, right? Like how vampires only attack because they need blood to survive, or how Yetis are usually just protecting their collection of animals.

Stiles hopes that’s the case with this thing because all he has to go on right now is an eerie memory of bright yellow eyes, three gashes, a smaller fourth cut beneath those, and a handful of dots that don’t seem to connect.

Stiles rubs his hands up and down his face to scrub away some of the weariness resting there and moves to find his computer. He doesn’t have time for the what ifs or maybes right now; he needs facts and evidence to help cement the pieces of this case. And something to take his damn mind off the pain in his side.

~

Five hours of research. _Five_. And Stiles only has three new pieces of information and a questionable list of some others to show for it. However, there could be pieces of information he threw out that were completely true, but he wouldn’t know because _somebody_ thinks they’re too cool for group work.

Stiles scoffs in the general direction of his door and then reads through his list again. First and foremost, not all kanima are freaky lizard people apparently, Stiles just happens to be very lucky. _Not_. Second, a kanima is some sort of shifter that’s related to werewolves, but only in as much as being ruled by the moon. Otherwise, in Stiles’ opinion, the two share very little resemblance. Third, _werewolves are real???_ Stiles shouldn’t be so surprised that werewolves exist considering the fact that he met a fucking _lizard_ last night, but here he is.

One thing he _isn’t_ is put off. The healthy dose of fear and anxiety thrumming through his veins aside, he finds that he’s more intrigued than anything. A few weeks ago Stiles would’ve laughed at the thought of the supernatural, as he very much has before. As far as he knew werewolves and were-lizard things were all bad CGI.

Distractions aside – like clickbait on vampires – Stiles encounters one piece of information that could potentially pose a problem. If this excerpt from a ‘bestiary’ is to be believed, kanima have a higher form. One that involves _wings_. Stiles can’t translate the whole page, archaic Latin being lost on him, but he’s able to parse out the fact that it’s a transformation. This is both good and bad news; as it stands right now the kani–

Stiles’ phone rings, pulling him from his thoughts. He reaches across the couch and thumbs at his phone until he can drag it into his grasp. “Nyello.”

“ _Got anything new?”_ Ah – his dad. Different phone.

Stiles cocks his head to the side and wedges his phone beneath it. “Whose phone are you calling me from?”

His father sighs. “ _Parrish’s. Now, back to wh –_ ”

“What happened to yours? Are you still here?” Stiles asks, stalling for time as he pulls on a shirt again and clears his research from the coffee table.

He’s just shoving it under the couch when his dad says, miserably, “ _It suffered an unfortunate accident at the hands of a pool of blood_.”

“Mm,” Stiles hums knowingly. “How long’s that gonna be evidence?”

“ _A while,_ ” his father responds impatiently. “ _Now if you’re done deflecting, is there anything you found – or anything you **remember** from last night you might have conveniently left out this morning?”_

Pausing, Stiles looks at the pages sticking out from beneath the couch. He shoves them away with a foot and says, “Uh… No, nothing new here yet. Deaton didn’t have much to give me that he didn’t already give you guys. Why?”

There’s a long and lingering pause that turns into a sigh on his father’s end. “ _Because there’s nothing here but blood and broken glass. Not a single person saw anything or anyone; not even those attacked_.”

“I’m sorry – _what_?” Stiles looks up toward his door. “How did _no one_ see anything?”

“ _I’ve been asking myself the same question for the past hour and a half._ ”

This is as much bad news for Stiles as it is for his father because it means he has nothing to go on except what he remembers from the night before – and some of that is fuzzy at best.

Stiles sighs. He has to give his dad _something_ to go on. “The only thing I remember from last night before I got knocked out is that something got broken a floor below and then the power went out.”

“ _When?_ ”

“Uh, right before I hung up on you and told you nothing was going on?” Stiles lilts.

His father’s sharp intake is all he needs to hear to know he’s in for it. “ _Stiles, are you out of your **mind**? How many times have I told you – forget it. It’s a miracle you didn’t get yourself killed._ ”

Stiles lets out a nervous laugh and looks down at his ribs. “Yeah – good thing.” He rubs his thumb across his bottom lip and thinks about how much worse it could’ve been before saying, “I’ll let you know if I find anything else out when I go to the hospital, okay?”

“ _I’d prefer you stay out of this from now on considering the turn this case is taking. **But** , since you and I both know you’ll just continue behind my back, I expect you to be smart and keep me informed at all times. And **don’t** hang up on me again.”_

“Yes sir,” Stiles answers on the tail end of a huff. “I’ll keep you in the loop.”

“ _Good_. _I’ll talk to you later. And I **mean** later.”_

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, I’ll call you later barring any unforeseen events.”

Once Stiles’ father hangs up he heaves a sigh and melts into his couch, both movements causing his side to ache. Each of his limbs rest on separate sections of either the couch or the floor. Looking up at the ceiling Stiles curses himself for volunteering to keep his father in the loop, because there’s no way Stiles can include his father in whatever supernatural manhunt has to go down. He’s not even sure how much _he_ can be involved, human as he is.

The best he can do right now is find out who the man behind the lizard mask is – or hope beyond all hope that kanima actually turn back into their human forms like he’s assuming werewolves do. Because, based on what little Stiles has gathered from the bestiary, it doesn’t seem to be looking that way.

~

Painting, and art in general, has always been a form of stress relief for Stiles. A way to detach from the troubles of the present, even if only for an hour or two. Initially, he used it as a sort of coping tool after his mother died. He’d get lost in the swirls of blues and purples and yellows. Back then he hadn’t even bothered to pick subjects, just threw paint at a canvas to unleash some of his pent-up anger and called it a day. He kind of wishes he could do that right now, but this is a professional mural, not his house, and he’s 24, not 11.

Stiles lets out a subdued sigh and continues his gentle but sure brushstrokes, shading one of many flowers that make up the imaginary field in the mural. When the desired effect isn’t achieved with the brushes he brought, Stiles takes his forefinger and blends a bit of one of the petals on the sunflower he’s working on. Detailing is time consuming, but a welcome distraction from how his day is going. His efforts to grab info about the injured parties from the “break in” last night from the nurses on duty were a bust. They were unfortunately tight-lipped.

 “Hey, you must be Stiles,” someone says from beside him.

Stiles startles and smudges the flower he was working on. He lets out a resigned huff before he puts the paintbrush in his other hand down. As he wipes his hands off on his jeans he turns to face whoever snuck up on him. “That would be me. And you are?”

The nurse, or who Stiles assumes is a nurse, rubs the back of his neck. He’s fresh-faced and he has mousy brown hair. Kinda awkward in his posture. “Oh, sorry. I’m Matthew – Matt for short. One of the new nurses.”

Stiles nods slowly and narrows his eyes slightly, assessing if anything. “Cool,” is what he replies with, but what he’s really thinking is _how the hell did you know my name?_

Matt must sense this because he says, “Yeah – Melissa mentioned that you were sort of new here too when she was showing me around. She said you weren’t gonna start your rotations or whatever else until you were finished with the mural though.”

Loosening up, Stiles says, “Oh. Yeah. I was actually supposed to start my training shifts a while ago but the guy who started this mural kinda just – left town. I offered to finish it up for whatever they were paying him so they wouldn’t have to go hunting around for someone else.”

“What happened to the last guy?” Matt asks, stepping closer.

“No clue. Melissa said a bunch of people have been leaving town ever since those weird animal attacks started.”

Some indefinable emotion crosses Matt’s face but it’s quickly replaced with something like concern. “I heard about that. It’s really awful what happened to those people. I went to high school with some of them.” He takes in a deep breath and grins, apparently having moved on, and says, “It was nice meeting you, but I gotta get back. See you around some time.”

“Yeah…” Stiles absently responds as he watches the fledgling nurse go. Something about the conversation sticks out in his mind. It’s a little blurry, like an undefined conclusion. Stiles replays the last few words Matt said in his mind, trying to pick out what it is about them that caught his attention in the first place.

_I went to high school with some of them…_

_high school with some of them._

**_High school._ **

“Oh, my god. _That’s it_.” Stiles pushes up the sleeve of his sweater and looks at his watch. He’s technically supposed to be here for another hour, but he can make it up later. Right now he really needs to see if he’s on the right track.

Stiles looks back down the hall where Matt went and silently thanks him before grabbing his keys and running down the hall in the opposite direction. He turns back halfway and cleans off his paintbrushes before he goes, knowing he’d hate himself later if he didn’t.

Once he’s finished he darts down the hallway again, almost knocking over one of the doctors on his way out. He turns around and continues jogging backwards, apologizing as he goes, and then he’s out the door.

~

Walking through the hallway where you could have accidentally spilled your intestines is a kind of bittersweet sensation, Stiles notes as he approaches the shattered hall window in the apartment building. The glass has either been cleaned up or taken away as evidence, but an industrial sheet of plastic now covers the gaping hole where a pane of glass should be. It warbles as the wind brushes up against it.

Stiles pauses and presses a hand to the plastic, letting his fingers skim across it. He lets out a faint hum and then looks over at the other two windows with a slightly tangential thought on his mind. He goes to one of the windows that’s still intact and drags is hand across it looking for imperfections. When all that’s within his reach is seemingly acceptable, he moves toward the bottom corner of the glass, smirking triumphantly when he finds what he was looking for.

“Tempered glass,” Stiles mutters to himself as he taps at the maker’s seal. It’s not really a huge deal that this glass is tempered, thereby making it stronger, but it lets Stiles know that this _kanima_ thing is strong. Something the bestiary’s excerpt didn’t really outline for him.

He didn’t exactly have any doubts about the lizard thing’s strength, but having a more accurate grasp of the situation helps for whatever reason. It doesn’t necessarily calm him though. He’s hoping his weird neighbor Derek threw the thing out of the window, rather than what he _thinks_ happened.

Stiles looks over at Derek’s door and scowls. Part of him wants to grill the guy for answers, but the more stubborn part of Stiles is determined to figure this whole situation out on his own. It’s what he’d been planning on doing in the first place anyway.

Stiles walks back toward his apartment, mumbling his theories to himself, but as soon as he unlocks the door and walks into his apartment he senses something is off. The air feels tense and thick, and the hair on his forearms stands on end because of it.

When he notices movement off to his right side, Stiles reflexively drops his keys and throws up his forearm just in time to block the hand that reaches out to grab him. His breath catches in his throat as piercing blue eyes bore into his soul, but some semblance of preservation instinct kicks in and he uses his left hand to punch, aiming for the assailant’s kidney.

Whoever it is that’s grabbing Stiles must see the move coming a mile away because they use their own free hand to catch his. But just as the two of their hands make contact a wave of electricity flushes through Stiles’ body. He yelps almost reflexively and pulls his hand away, out of breath suddenly.

Before Stiles can do anything else the light switch is turned on and he’s is faced with none other than Apartment 33.

“ _Jesus H. Christ_!” Stiles yells, irritated. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

“You left the window by the fire escape unlocked.”

“So you took it upon yourself to break into my apartment?” Stiles squawks. “What do you climb fire escapes for _fun_?” He looks toward where his bat is resting up against the space beside his front door, tempted to grab it, but his neighbor makes some sort of warning sound in the back of his throat.

“ _Don’t_.”

Stiles clenches his teeth together. “If you don’t want me to grab that bat and hit you, you better fucking explain what’s going on _real_ quick. Or explain what the hell you just did to my hand.” Gripping his left hand with his right, Stiles looks down only to find little tendrils of electricity crawling across his fingertips.

He yelps and shakes his hands hoping to rid his hands of the energy.

“That won’t do anything,” Derek says. He steps closer eliciting a flinch from Stiles, and then steps back again despite looking for all the world like he wants to touch – to examine.

“It _would_ be you,” Derek mutters to himself.

Stiles lets out a childish noise of frustration. “Can you just – stop being cryptic for five seconds and tell me what the fuck is going on, or why you’re here in my apartment. _Again_.”

Derek’s gaze snaps away from Stiles’ hand. “I’ve been following you.”

“Uh,” Stiles falters for a moment, looking for the right words. He takes another step back in the direction of his bat. “Jesus. _That’s_ not creepy at all. Why?”

“You have information that I need.”

Stiles’ eyebrows fly upward. “Excuse me?”

Derek gives him an appraising look and says, “Your father. I heard him today. He’s the sheriff, isn’t he?”

“… How is that any of your business?” Stiles asks defensively. That bat is looking pretty good right now.

His neighbor rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to hurt him –”

“Why should I trust anything that comes out of your mouth?”

“– I just want the case files,” Derek continues, cutting through Stiles’ mini tirade. “The ones you were reading the other day. I’m assuming they were for this case.”

Stiles crosses his arms and his eyebrows draw together. “Are you – You seriously think I’m gonna give _you_ case files that _I’m_ not even supposed to have?”

“Yes,” Derek answers, voice even. The sad part is, he’s all too serious. “You said you wanted to work together.”

Stiles makes a noise in the back of his throat. “I _might_ have to rescind that invitation on account of the fact that you _broke into **my** **apartment**_.” He makes a face and then bends his knees so he can retrieve his keys. When he’s back up he threads them in between his fingers and says, “Gonna go with my gut right now and _not_ share confidential information with someone whose name I _just_ learned.”

Derek’s face goes pinched. “Listen, if you want –”

“I don’t want anything from you.” Stiles opens his apartment door. “I don’t _need_ anything from you either. So, a partnership based on the trading of information would be useless to me, because I already **have** what I need. No thanks to _you_.”

“How could you possibly know anything about the supernatural without my help?”

Stiles smirks. “I thought you were human?” He holds a hand over his injured side and says, “Anyway, there’s this cool new thing called research where you look up information on then things you want to know about. My motivator is these four gashes on my side. Y’know, the ones I got for you right before you refused to work with me.”

When Derek opens his mouth, most likely to fire back with some witty retort, Stiles holds up his hand and then gestures toward the door. “The exit is this way, just in case you were wondering. If you’re still feeling like Spiderman’s creepier and less heroic cousin, you can always climb back out through the window.”

Derek levels Stiles with an unimpressed look, but when Stiles doesn’t budge on the issue it turns into a scowl. He opens his mouth again, as if to say something else, but seemingly thinks better of it. As he turns to leave he pauses at the door and says, “I’ll be back later.”

“Not if you don’t want me to call the cops, you won’t.” Stiles shuts the door in Derek’s face once again and secures all three locks. After that he slams the window by the fire escape shut and locks it before dropping the blinds. Stiles doesn’t bother fixing them when they fall crooked and instead runs to his room to check on the few paper case files and research he has stashed away under his bed. He pulls out the shoebox that was tucked behind an empty suitcase there and heaves a giant sigh when he finds everything in its place.

He’s lucky Derek didn’t grab anything, but Stiles wouldn’t put it past the guy to have taken pictures to throw off suspicion. Stiles mutters obscenities under his breath and works on finding a new hiding place. Then he makes a mental note to get another deadbolt chain for his door.

~

Stiles wakes up in the middle of the night with a dry taste in his mouth and a dull ache in his side. He lets out a tired sigh and stares up at his ceiling. Outside, rain taps at the roof, but it’s only a gentle shower. Still, Stiles sits up and rubs a hand down his face before getting up to grab the buckets. It’s not like he’s been able to sleep anyway. He’s woken up three times already and each time it’s taken longer to fall back asleep.

Thankfully, there’s only one puddle to sop up when Stiles makes it into the other room. The steady _drip, drip, drip_ against the hardwood plays out in the quiet apartment like a metronome. Always on beat.

At one point in the night Stiles tries to paint, but he’s less than productive because his mind is elsewhere. After that he tries to focus on cleaning his paintbrushes, hoping that will clear out the occupied space in his head as well, but it doesn’t.

Stiles eventually caves and opens his laptop, pulling up his digital mind map. Last night wasn’t exactly the prime time for investigation or research what with his neighbor _breaking into his apartment_. Stiles had spent the better part of the evening making sure Derek didn’t touch any of his shit, and he’s still not so sure the guy didn’t. Whatever the case, Stiles has moved on – _for now_ – so he settles in and gets back to work.

Out of what Stiles has grouped as the five main victims, one was 27, two were 26, one was 25, and another was 23. Both 26 year olds were found a short way from a camper they had been staying in together. One was a lawyer to be, the other a baker. The 25-year-old was a mechanic who was found in his own shop, the blood stains on his pants near indistinguishable from the dirty oil spilled around him in the struggle. The 27-year-old was inactive military, visiting from out of town. Last was the 23-year-old rave organizer found dead at one of her own parties.

All of them, aside from their age group, were wildly different from one another. A fact that had bothered Stiles to no end. But now, as Stiles rereads their files skimming for personal details, he confirms the offhand comment his coworker Mark or Max or whatever made.

 _Matt_ , Stiles thinks, correcting himself.

Each of the victims went to Beacon Hills High School. Given their ages, Stiles is a little upset with himself for not having figured it out. He would’ve been in high school around the same time as _all_ of them. There’s no reason he should’ve missed that. However, it’s not completely surprising. Stiles wasn’t exactly the most popular high schooler, especially not with the way his ADHD was left unchecked for the first half of it. He stayed in his respective corner with Scott and resigned himself to a high school career of mediocrity, complete with bench-warming for the lacrosse team. In hindsight, it doesn’t bother him as much as he thought it would.

Shaking off the stray thought, Stiles goes back to reading up on the former BHHS students. An hour in, he finds further evidence tying them together, something that makes him uncomfortable when he remembers how all of them died.

“They were all – on the swimming team,” he mutters to himself. His mind skips back to the line on one of the autopsy reports that read, ‘ _Immediate cause of death: Asphyxiation by drowning.’_

Stiles sits back and rubs a hand over his left arm, but the movement quickly turns into him scratching the area. Not long after, a sick feeling settles in his stomach as he remembers the profession of one of the missing persons.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Stiles hisses. “That swimming coach is totally dead, isn’t he?”

Looking at the clock, Stiles groans. It’s _4:39 a.m._ His dad won’t be up right now, and even if he was Stiles wouldn’t call. The sheriff would know something was up if he got a call from Stiles at four in the morning.

Stiles bites his bottom lip, thinking, and decides he’ll call at eight. That’s just early enough for him to get this off his chest without seeming distressed. Until then, Stiles decides to try and figure out what a mutant lizard would have against five swimmers and the man who was probably their coach.


	4. Sola dosis facit venenum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sola dosis facit venenum: The dose makes the poison

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the staggered updates, I'm currently in the middle of a move and I'm transitioning into a new place and job, etc. In the future, updates will probably be more spread out like this (about a month in between) as I tweak what I originally had planed for this story and add on to finish it. I promise I'm not abandoning it this time, and if you want to hold me accountable you can always find me on tumblr @ bioloyg.tumblr.com
> 
> Please enjoy this lovely cliffhanger. See you soon<3

Staring into the mirror, Stiles pokes at the bruised skin surrounding the gashes in his left side. It hurts, but not enough to make him flinch. At this point he’s conditioned himself not to. Just _sitting_ makes the area hurt, but the one time Stiles’ dad pulled him in for a rough hug was worse than every little twinge combined. So, Stiles doesn’t wince or jerk back whenever someone accidentally touches the area. He can explain away random bruises and lie through his teeth about where he was when he actually _wasn’t_ , but there’s no way in hell he could come up with a feasible lie about where he got these marks in his side.

They’re irritatingly ugly. A weird maroon-red-purple combination of scabs and raw skin. They start high on his side, tipping downward toward his bellybutton like gruesome arrows. The edges are jagged where the claws sliced through, and two of them still bleed if Stiles isn’t careful with the way he moves.

Stiles lets out a plaintive sigh when he thinks about swimming next summer. He’s going to have three, very **large** pink scars, never mind that inconsequential fourth one. The fourth cut is already scabbed over. _That_ _one_ he could’ve weaseled his way out of, could’ve blamed it on some sharp object he left on a counter or – or _something_.

Not the other three, though.

Stiles slowly drags two fingers in between the first and second cuts. The second is the largest. The edges are raised, red and angry, and a thick crust has formed where the broken skin has healed over. But not the middle, no that area is all too fresh and aching despite the somewhat narrow width of the gash.

In all honesty, Stiles probably should’ve gotten stitches for the second claw mark in his side, but there was no way in hell _he_ was taking a needle to his skin. Going to get it checked out at the hospital wasn’t an option either.

Unfortunately, Stiles wasn’t exactly left with many options of **any** kind at the time, which is why he’s here in the bathroom – lamenting over the fact he can never be shirtless during the summer ever again. At least not in front of his dad. Or Melissa. Or Scott…

Okay so pretty much everyone he knows.

_Maybe I can say I got attacked by something at Deaton’s again. **No, you’d feel guilty and probably get Scott in trouble.** Well what if I – **NO.** But if I said it was from falling out of a tree – **and how would you explain how neat the rows are, or why you didn’t go to the hospital?** Uh – I’m a nurse – hello. **All the more reason you should’ve gone to the hospital; you could’ve died from an infection.**_

Stiles goes back and forth with himself, rationalizing and desperately searching for ways to explain the mess that is now his abdomen, all while glaring into the mirror across from him. He blinks a few times to wet his eyes and stops twisting his torso now that he’s done staring at the world’s biggest fucking mistake.

“All this for a guy you barely even knew,” Stiles mutters balefully as he begins to clean the area. “Good job, numnuts. He’s not even human – he probably could’ve taken it. But _nooooo,_ you had to go and be a hero!” He dabs at the cuts and silently wishes that these things would just disappear. It would make his life _so_ much easier if he could will things like this away.

Stiles is angrily pressing down on the third gash when his right hand lights up with an unnatural purple surge of electricity. He jolts backward and then remembers he can’t exactly out run his hand.

“What the _fuck_ , man.”

Stiles lets out a loud sigh and holds his hand out. _This isn’t the weirdest thing that’s happened to you this month_ , he tells himself as he touches his right hand with his left.

The electricity jumps from one hand to the other for a moment before settling evenly on both of them. Whatever this energy thing is – it wasn’t a problem before Stiles met Derek. It’s technically not a problem right now, but it’s weird. It’s – it’s… Stiles doesn’t know what it is!

It doesn’t hurt. At least not the way it did when Stiles and Derek touched. Right now, it feels like his hands are dipped in a bag of cotton balls, or swathed in fuzz. Like static almost, but not like when your hand is asleep. It’s hard to describe, much to Stiles’ frustration.

If there’s anything that Stiles needed Derek for, it’s this. For whatever reason, he has a strong feeling that if he tried to google his little problem all he’d get back would be stuff about Storm from X-Men or links to what static electricity is. But Derek – he’d said something like, ‘of course it’s you,’ or whatever, so maybe he knows what this is about.

As if the universe were listening to Stiles’ inner monologue, a knock sounds out against his front door. Stiles doesn’t exactly startle, but apparently the electricity on his hands does because it leaps from his hands and shorts out the lightbulbs above his sink.

“ _Seriously_!” Stiles whines. He lets out a flustered huff and grabs his shirt off the counter, pulling it over his head as he walks. Whether he likes it or not, Stiles is going to have to talk to Derek about what the fuck is happening with his body. For once he actually hopes it’s his neighbor on the other side of the door.

Just as Stiles’ hand is reaching for the doorknob, a more frantic knock sounds against the door. This one _does_ startle Stiles a little bit, and electricity crawls over his hands in response. Stiles glares at his hand pointedly before hissing, “You cut that shit out right now, I don’t have time for this.”

Much to his surprise, the crawl of energy subsides. Stiles barely has time to be confused because another series of knocks pulls his attention away from the subject. And then, “ _Stiles_. Please wake up. This is important.”

“Scott?” Stiles answers, incredulous. He looks down at his bare wrist thinking his watch will be there, but it’s not. Either way, Stiles is pretty sure it’s before 10 a.m. which means Scott is up early. And Scott is _not_ an early riser.

Stiles opens the door only to be mowed down. Once Scott has pushed himself inside he closes Stiles’ door and locks the doorknob, deadbolt, and chain. “Have you turned on the news?”

Stiles draws his eyebrows downward, confused. “Uh, no. Kinda just woke up less than two hours ago. Wasn’t exactly high up on my list. Why?”

Scott heaves a sigh and wordlessly heads to Stiles’ living room. Stiles follows slowly, trying to parse out the answer to the actual question Scott hasn’t asked yet. _Do you know what’s going on_?

He rounds the corner just as his best friend is turning on the TV. Rather than claim the whole left side of the couch like Scott usually does when he invites himself over, Scott nervously paces around the coffee table. Stiles is about to ask Scott what’s got him so strung out when a low tone sounds out over the TV, grabbing his attention.

 

 ***Breaking News: Beacon Hills police officer found dead after answering a distress call. A strictly enforced curfew of 8 p.m. is in effect immediately.** *

 

Stiles is halfway through his ‘what the fuck?’ when the anchorwoman from the last broadcast pops onto screen holding two fingers to her ear piece. She seems to notice that she’s back on the air after a short delay and solemnly addresses the masses.

**Tragedy strikes in Beacon Hills yet again today as news of the loss of one of our officers at the Beacon County Sheriff’s Department breaks. Our sources are telling us that the young officer was called out to a camper somewhere in the Beacon Hills preserve on a distress call before being brutally attacked. We take you now to one of our field reporters at the scene of the crime. Tom, what can you tell us?**

_Not much, unfortunately Margaret. The deputies and officers in the area are holding this one close to their chests this morning and are once again hesitant to comment. However, we do know that Officer Manning was called out to a camper on the edge of the preserve for a distress call that was later determined to be either a false alarm or a trap._

**Oh, wow. A trap?**

_Yes. We’re working on getting the audio file for that phone call now, but an anonymous tipster has told us that no one has lived in that camper for the past year._

**Have the officers been able to find** _any_ **evidence of someone having lived in the camper recently, maybe someone homeless?**

_Not to my knowledge, no. It would seem the tip we were given holds true as of yet. All we know for sure right now is that this was no accident. Back to you Margaret._

**Thank you, Tom.** The anchorwoman turns back to address the camera. **Due to the increase in both attacks and deaths as of late, our 10 p.m. curfew has been moved up to 8 p.m. effective immediately. Officers understand that this may be an inconvenience to some of you, but would like us to remind you that this is for _your_ safety. Should you find yourself in a position where you absolutely _must_ travel at night, officers advise that you travel in pairs. We’ll be back with the 10-day forecast after a short break.**

Stiles unthinkingly places his right hand over the mar on his side and shivers. He turns back to Scott only to find him nervously shifting from foot to foot like he can’t decide whether he wants to run or not. It’s kind of unsettling, because now Stiles feels like he should be more freaked out than he is. He guesses things change a little bit after you’ve been attacked by a freakishly huge lizard.

“Is that what you came over here to talk about?”

“No. Yes? I – yes _and_ no.” Scott takes in a deep breath and runs a hand through his short curls. “I was working the overnight shift with Deaton last night because there’s been a lot of wounded animals lately.”

“ _Yeaaah_?” Stiles lilts when Scott just kinda goes silent.

Scott looks up and nervously wets his lips. “And well… Deputy Parrish came by to talk to Deaton? I don’t usually listen in on their conversations, but –”

“Wait, _usually_? What do you mean, ‘usually,’ does Parrish come around a lot?”

Scott waves his hands. “ _No_. Well, maybe more than usual for someone who has no pets. _I don’t know_. That’s not the point – the point is, he and Deaton were talking about the animal attack.”

“And?” Stiles starts, confused. “The department _has_ asked Deaton to help out before.”

“Yeah, but usually Deaton visits _them_. And when he does, he definitely doesn’t say things like, ‘it’s a half-human abomination that can transform into a snake.’”

 _That asshole!_ Stiles thinks bitterly. _Deaton knew that whole time I was asking him questions. **That’s** why he looked like he was laughing. God, I probably looked like such an - _

“Uh, Stiles. Why don’t you seem surprised?”

“What? I’m – I’m _totally_ surprised. That’s _so_ weird. What do you think he meant?”

“Oh my god,” Scott groans, looking up at the ceiling. “You _totally_ knew already, didn’t you?”

Stiles grimaces and holds his hands up in a placating manner. “Knew is such a strong word. Maybe like – the word _guessed_.”

“ **Dude.** ”

“Okay, okay, fine! I kind of knew. But I was still in the middle of figuring out whether or not I was crazy. It’s not like I could just call you up and be like, ‘hey Scott, there’s a giant lizard dude that walks around on two legs that can paralyze its prey with its claws.’ You probably would’ve thought I was blazed out of my mind talking about lizard people in the government again.”

“How long have you _known_?” Scott asks, indignant. “Cause that paralyzing bit sounds like you know a lot more than someone who _just_ found out.”

Stiles frowns. “Oh c’mon, don’t gimme that look, Scott. _Scott_. To be fair I knew about the victims being paralyzed long before I got attacked by that lizard freak –”

“YOU GOT ATTACKED?!”

Wow Stiles is really, _really_ bad at this today. He closes his eyes and lets out a pained sigh as he drags a hand down his face. “Okay, look, it’s not what you think.”

Scott’s eyes narrow and scan over his body. Then, without warning, Scott comes to Stiles’ side and yanks his shirt up. Stiles doesn’t even have room to squawk at him like a petulant child because Scott says, “I knew it! I _knew_ there was a reason why you wouldn’t let me hug you. Strep throat my _ass_. Stiles, what the _hell_?”

Stiles bats Scott’s hands away and pulls his shirt down. “Hey, who’s the nurse and who’s the veterinarian in training here? I’m _fine_. It’s just a little scratch.”

“A little scratch?” Scott repeats, dubious. “Stiles a little scratch is when you cut yourself on a piece of paper. Little scratches come from kittens, not jaguars!”

Sighing, Stiles gathers himself and tries to reign in the conversation. How it got this far out of hand is beyond him. He pinches the bridge of his nose before saying, “Not a jaguar, a _lizard_ – wait, did you say Deaton called it a snake?”

“Focus,” Scott says, stern.

Stiles rolls his eyes and tables that for later. “Okay, remember a little over a week ago when I was telling you about why the window in the hall was broken?”

“Yeah – you said it was because of some guy who was pissed at the landlord.”

“About that…”

Scott lets out a harsh noise in the back of his throat, something near a scoff. “How much have you been lying to me about?”

“Only a little!” Stiles says quickly. “It’s – what would _you_ have done if you were in my position, huh? Would you have gone straight to Allison and said, ‘babe I saw a 6-foot lizard break into the apartment today,’ or would you choose something more believable like, ‘some guy took a bat to the glass because the landlord said he owed 2k in back payments?’”

Scott deflates a little, but he manages to make it back up by crossing his arms. “Fine. Explain. From the _beginning_.”

~

Stiles hadn’t realized how much he had bottled up inside him until he had to explain it to Scott.

It takes him almost _two_ hours to cover all his bases, including everything from how all the victims were on the BHHS swim team to the fact that this lizard thing might be able to _fly_. Well, everything except the weird static electricity problem Stiles has been having recently.

He dutifully ignores Scott’s baffled expression when he exits the bathroom saying, “Dude, all your lights are out in there,” and blames it on the fact that the power went out during the break in. He’s _definitely_ not ready to touch on whatever weird thing Derek’s making his body do. Especially when he doesn’t even know what Derek _is_ , something Scott is hesitant to believe. That’s not important right now, though. At least – it’s not the _most_ important thing right now.

“Hey,” Scott says after hanging up his cellphone. “That was my mom. She said she got roped into staying past her shift, so she wants me to grab her something to eat. Something about being short staffed.”

Stiles frowns. “Tell her I said hi and that I’ll see her tomorrow.”

“Sure thing.” Scott pauses by the door at the last second. He taps at the frame and then looks over his shoulder. “What are you gonna do about all this, Stiles? I mean – if the reason these people are dying really _is_ this lizard thing, don’t you think you should stay out of it?”

Stiles offers up a lopsided grin and shrugs. “Think I’m kinda in the middle of it already.”

Scott nods and looks down at the floor. “Guess you’re right. Promise you’ll keep me in the loop?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I promise. I – look, just don’t tell your mom, okay?”

He nods again. “I’m guessing you’re not gonna tell your dad any time soon.”

“Not if I don’t have to.” Stiles thinks about his father getting caught in the crosshairs of all of this and frowns again. Yeah, that’s definitely not happening.

Scott shakes his head and lets out a soft sigh. “Be _careful._ And don’t do anything stupid.”

“Yeah, _okay_.” Stiles snorts. That’ll be the day.

At Scott’s murderous (and somehow convincing) glare, Stiles amends his earlier response and tries to lace it with as much sincerity as he can muster. “Okay, okay, geez. I promise I won’t do anything as stupid as wandering around the woods alone at night. But breaking into the school’s archive for information is completely in bounds and you can’t stop me.”

“Whatever, if you get caught I don’t know you.”

“Harsh.”

Scott smiles, something soft and sincere this time. “I’ll see you later.”

Stiles holds a hand up in goodbye and smiles back, but as soon as Scott is gone and the door is closed Stiles rushes to lock it and lets out a deep breath. His forced casual air falls to the ground with it, and finally Stiles slides downward too.

He has no idea what he’s going to do about half of this situation. Just when he thinks he has a grasp on everything the world goes and tilts 180 on him. Apparently, Deaton knows more than he’s admitting, but Parrish is somehow involved enough that Deaton was willing to share information with him. Information that is eerily close to that bestiary excerpt Stiles found. On top of that, the kanima has deviated from its supposed M.O.

Officer Manning wasn’t from Beacon Hills, meaning he never went to BHHS or joined the swimming team. Stiles knows that much just from hanging around his dad’s office in his youth. So, knowing that, Manning’s death almost seems senseless. Both Stiles and his father know that the target victims are all involved with the swim team somehow. Everyone else seems to be collateral damage Except, maybe that’s _why_ Officer Manning died.

As soon as Stiles told his dad about the connection, everyone who was even _remotely_ close to those involved with the swim team nine years ago was pulled from the area.

_You take away a predator’s prey and still, life will find a way._

Stiles is reminded of the chaos theorist from Jurassic Park and his comments about forcing mother nature’s hand. How there is only disorder and unpredictability in the universe. Stiles calls bullshit. There might be things that are wholly out of his control, too big for mortals to weigh in on, but he’s not going to let this be one of them. And if that means he has to fake being a tough guy to get answers, then so be it.

~

Stiles waits until just before the animal clinic closes to camp his happy ass out in one of the plastic chairs in the waiting room. Normally he’d hate himself for doing such a thing – really, who would put a service worker in that position unnecessarily? – but today is not that day.

It only takes about eight minutes for Deaton to stroll around to the front door, and when he does he seems mildly surprised to see Stiles.

“I don’t see a pet in your possession, so is there something else I can help you with today, Mr. Stilinski?” Deaton asks, by way of greeting. There’s a touch of irritation in his words, which is surprising. Stiles wasn’t aware the guy could emote, let alone take a _tone_.

Stiles rises from his seat and clasps his hands in front of himself. “Yes, actually. I had a question about _snakes_. Maybe just reptiles in general.”

Deaton tilts his head to the side just a bit, curious. “And this is a question that couldn’t wait until tomorrow during business hours.”

“You’ve still got one minute on the clock,” Stiles says as he looks down at his watch. “But maybe I should’ve asked you off the clock the first time I visited.”

Some sort of understanding crosses Deaton’s face and he smiles placidly. “Very well then.” He breezes past Stiles to lock the front door, flipping the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed’ shortly after. “Follow me.”

Deaton makes his way behind the front desk and strides into the back room where the exams are held. Stiles isn’t sure what it means that they aren’t going to Deaton’s office, but he’s starting feel as though he should’ve brought his bat. Regardless of the fear gnawing at the pit of his stomach, Stiles follows Deaton into the examination room.

It’s no more welcoming or bright than the last time Stiles saw it. In fact, it almost seems _more_ drab and colorless, like all the life has been sucked right out of it. It gives Stiles the heebie-jeebies, especially when Deaton closes the door to the main area behind him.

Eventually, Deaton moves just behind the metal examination table at the center of the room and crosses his arms. Stiles is almost glad for the barrier between them because Deaton’s face is eerily impassive, and in this atmosphere it almost makes him look – menacing.

Stiles doesn’t trust the guy as far as he can throw him, and it’s been a while since he went to the gym for anything but cardio.

“So, you had a question for me about – _snakes_?”

“Reptiles,” Stiles corrects. “I’m not so sure what I’m trying to identify is a snake.”

“And what exactly are you trying to identify?” Deaton wonders.

“Wouldn’t be asking if I knew,” Stiles quips. He smirks and shoves his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie.

Deaton smiles back, which is entirely unsettling on his face. “But you _do_ know. Otherwise I don’t think you would’ve made your way back here.”

Stiles considers Deaton with a narrowed gaze. Not long after, his eyes dart to the edges of the room taking in all of the sharps and chords and equipment. He tries to weigh his options in case Deaton ends up being involved. “What makes you think I know anything about this reptile in question? For all I know it could be an iguana.”

“You and I both know that what you saw the other night wasn’t an iguana.”

Stiles jerks his hands out of his pockets. “How do you –?”

“Relax,” Deaton says as he uncrosses his arms. He looks down at Stiles’ hands, which are an unnatural purple. Before Stiles can hide them away, Deaton says, “I told you, there are many things you don’t know about the inhabitants of Beacon County.”

Stiles takes a cautionary step backward. “One of which is you… What exactly _are_ you?”

“A veterinarian,” Deaton answers, deadpan. “If you’re wondering how I know about our reptilian problem, that’s a different story.”

“Mind elaborating on that, Doc?”

“Not at all,” Deaton replies, but he doesn’t expand upon the topic. “Now, what do you want to know about the kanima?”

~

Stiles trudges up the stairs leading to his apartment with a leather-bound book tucked neatly underneath his arm and the faint feeling of mental whiplash. Deaton had been helpful and vague all at once, giving information only when it seemed to suit a direction he wished to go. Apparently that direction was more about Stiles than it was about the kanima.

As far as the kanima was concerned, Deaton pulled out an old tome and handed it to Stiles like it was some well-worn doctor’s office magazine and not the very bestiary Stiles had been trying to find online. After that Deaton was pretty much an impenetrable vault of, no doubt endless, information – said something about Stiles working through it on his own and “maintaining a safe distance.”

Stiles lets out a faint huff and opens the door leading to his hallway. He crossed over that red line as soon as he offered to help his dad with the case. There was no neutrality to be maintained because there was never any _for_ him in the first place.

Adjusting the book beneath his wing, Stiles pulls his keys from his pocket. The key hasn’t even turned in the lock all the way before the door across the hall opens. Stiles freezes in place as a frisson of anxiety crawls up his spine. His hands feel dead with static numbness until the energy frees itself from his skin and tracks along them at the surface.

“What do you want?” Stiles says as he finishes turning the key. He doesn’t bother to turn around.

“To talk,” says the voice behind him, suddenly all too close.

Stiles fights the urge to shiver. He gets the feeling out in a put off sigh. “ _You_ want to talk? Do you think you can make it past five syllables?” The door swings open and Stiles straightens out, looking into his neighbor’s vibrant blue eyes. “I’m surprised you didn’t break into my house again.”

“Fire escape ladder wasn’t down,” Derek deadpans as he looks into Stiles’ apartment.

“Y’know that doesn’t make me want to let you in, right?” Stiles drops his keys on a table adjacent to the door as he walks in. He turns around and rolls his eyes when he sees Derek step past the threshold. “ _Aaaaand_ you’re already inside.” Stiles brushes the heel of his hand over his right eye, rubbing it.

“Obviously not a vampire,” Stiles mutters to himself as he drops the book under his arm on his coffee table. “Shut the door behind you.”

The door clicks shut and then Derek is by his side, silent. He hovers awkwardly as if he can’t decide on something.

“Spit it out, dude. What are you here for?”

The question elicits a constipated look, as if Stiles were pulling teeth from Derek instead of answers. He closes his eyes and lets a short and sharp breath out of his nose. “It’s come to my attention that certain people would like us to work together.” Every word seems more painful to admit than the last.

“Certain people…” Stiles scrunches his eyebrows and lets out a dry laugh. “Uh – yeah, **_you_** wanted to work together.”

“If I had it my way you wouldn’t be involved. You’re not as strong as us,” Derek says, matter of fact.

Stiles scoffs, “Not strong enough? In case you missed it, I was the one countering that stupid lizard’s hits while you were on the ground.” He looks away to avoid doing something stupid like sticking out his tongue. “And what do you mean, ‘us?’”

“I’m well aware that you were the one to throw yourself in between me and the kanima like an idiot. Look what it got you.”

Stiles cracks the knuckles in his thumbs as he clenches his fists. “Maybe I should’ve just let you _die_ , because most people would be thankful if someone took a metaphorical bullet for them.”

Derek lets out an annoyed huff. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Well you’re sure as hell not saying _thank you_.”

“Because it was stupid, and I would have healed!”

Stiles turns to him then. “How do _you_ know! Have you been fighting komodo dragons on steroids in your spare time?”

Derek’s jaw clenches as he stares Stiles down. “No.”

“Then you have no way of knowing!”

Derek steps closer then, letting his blue-green eyes drain of their color until they’re that eerie, icy blue again. He bares his teeth and lets them grow into angry points, stepping closer still, backing Stiles into the edge of his couch. By the time Derek is finished transforming he has pointed ears and wolfish features. “I **_do_** know.”

Stiles’ eyes go shock wide and his pulse skitters frantically. “Oh – my god.” He swallows in the middle of a breath and then lets all of the air back out in a rush.  “You – you’re –”

“A werewolf.”

“What big teeth you have,” Stiles says nervously.

“This is why you shouldn’t –” Derek stops and composes himself, his rough features receding. “You aren’t taking this _seriously_.”

Stiles takes a step to the side. “I’m sorry, would you rather I screamed? _Oh officer, please help, the big bad wolf ate my grandma._ ” He narrows his eyes as he takes another step back and brushes the weird feeling in his limbs away with shaky hands. “I’m kinda past that point! You’re definitely not as scary as the fucking lizard that had it in for my kidneys.”

“You don’t know that,” Derek says, near petulant.

Stiles levels him with a look. “You’re not trying to gut me right now, so I kinda do.”

“It’s not for lack of desire.” Derek shakes his head and looks down. “Look, I don’t have all night. You’re not safe on your own and we both want the same thing.”

“Really? Cause I kinda want you to leave me alone for the foreseeable future.”

Derek snorts. “The feeling is mutual.”

“Then why are you _here_? You’re the werew – oh my god.” He narrows his eyes at Derek. “You know that thing, don’t you?”

“Excuse me.” There’s no inflection in Derek’s voice, but there _is_ irritation in his eyes.

“The kanima. That _thing_. It’s related to werewolves.”

Derek bristles at that, eyes flaring red for a moment. “We are _not_ comparable.”

Stiles lets out a short huff. “I know that. But the bestiary said it’s a werewolf gone wrong, like a mutation.”

 “We don’t know him,” Derek practically mutters. The regret in his voice is all too evident.

“Him? And don’t think I haven’t noticed your failure to explain this ‘we’ you mentioned earlier.”

“The pack,” Derek replies tiredly, as if Stiles should’ve known already. “We want him gone, and you can help us.”

Stiles’ eyebrows climb upward. “Uh, how? At this point, you and I know the same things.”

Derek steps forward and before Stiles can flinch, he slots their hands together. An unpleasant shock travels the length of their arms causing them both to grimace. “Because – you’re a spark.”


	5. The Spark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Pride, lovelies :) I've decided to surprise you with an early update!
> 
> Pros: it's early and an update, it's almost 8,000 words, and Stiles and Derek are both assholes. What more could you want?
> 
> Cons: I will be away on a trip for the entire first half of July visiting family, so the next update may be a little over a month and a half from now (remember, this chapter wasn't supposed to be posted til like the 26th).
> 
> Even more cons: This was the last chapter I had written when I initially deleted the fic, and even then it was only half finished, so I am now flying solo. I've tried to mend the previous chapters to fit my writing style now (a lot changes in two years, trust me), but if the fic seems different in style to you after this point then that'd be why.
> 
> A secret surprise pro: I'm going to try and finalize a playlist for this fic. There are a lot of songs I've been listening to in order to get into the right headspace while writing and editing, and I feel like you guys would enjoy getting to hear some of them too!

Stiles paces the length of his couch while Derek stands amidst the many easels in the open space pretending to be a dining area. For a moment Stiles wonders if he should’ve taken Scott up on his offer to move in together – his best friend’s nightly fun with Allison aside – because he’d much rather pay a few bucks for ear plugs than deal with whatever _this_ is.

When Stiles moved back to Beacon Hills after college he wasn’t expecting lizard monsters or werewolves. And he certainly wasn’t expecting to be told that he was some sort of magical creature, either. These are **not** things they prepared Stiles for in elementary school. Those teachers swore up and down that all Stiles would need to know was basic math and how to read an analog clock. This definitely isn’t something he can banish with multiplication or the minute hand, though. In fact, if Stiles makes it out of this alive he swears up and down he’s gonna have a chat with his fourth-grade teacher Mrs. Jacobs about how dragons probably _are_ real.

Stiles stops pacing after a few minutes and turns his head over his shoulder, looking the werewolf in the other room over. A _werewolf_. Stiles feels like he might be going insane. Oh, and on top of that Derek is claiming that Stiles is something called a “spark.” In _people-who-thought-they-were-normal_ speak that apparently means that Stiles is something akin to a witch or wizard.

Any other day this would be staggering news capable of shifting Stiles’ entire world view. Today though? This is almost unsurprising. Hell, he just found out giant lizard people and werewolves are things that exist, what’s a little bit of wizardry on top of that?

Stiles looks down at his hand that’s still swathed in a weak lilac sheet of, well, magic apparently, and sighs. “Why are you telling me all of this?” He wonders absently. “First you say you want me to stay as far away from this as possible, and now you’re saying we should work together.”

Derek looks away from one of Stiles’ paintings with a grim face. He slowly sidesteps the easel and makes his way into the living room, saying, “It wasn’t my choice.”

Stiles lets out a short huff. “Of course it wasn’t.” He crosses his arms, shielding himself from the frustration that’s practically rolling off Derek in waves. “So, let’s just recap. You’re telling me that you came over here to talk about how I’m _allegedly_ something slightly more than human and that we should ‘work together,’ but it was all against your will?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Derek replies, weariness weighing heavily on his voice. “… _Others_ have requested we try and work together. If it were up to me, I would have explained all of this later. Approached you differently.”

“Or not at all,” Stiles mutters as he looks away.

Derek lets out an irritated huff and gestures vaguely to Stiles’ left side. “Again. Look what being involved got you.”

Stiles snorts. “ _Again_ , didn’t really need any help with that one, buddy. I was in this way before you came along. Besides, if I hadn’t pushed you out of the way I probably would’ve died. Sometimes you have to lose a battle to win the war.”

Derek tries to move past the subject, bothered by some portion of it. “What happened that night –” He pauses, frowns. “That won’t happen again.”

“You have no way of knowing that.” Stiles unthinkingly rests a hand over the mar on his side. It stings.

Derek follows the movement, his jaw muscles straining as he does. “It won’t if you just work with me and the pack like I’m _asking_.”

“You keep saying ‘pack’ like I know what you’re talking about,” Stiles fires back impatiently. “You _do_ know I have very little knowledge of the supernatural, right? I mean, aside from what I know about the kanima, I’m kinda limited to old movies from the 80’s with horrible graphics.”

“Pack is – complicated to explain to a human.”

Stiles levels him with a look. “Make it uncomplicated. Ten bucks says it’s like a family unit.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “It’s deeper than that. Not all packs are made up of people who are related.”

“But some _are_ , right?” Stiles asks as he leans forward expectantly.

“Yes,” Derek responds, short. “ _Some_ are.”

Stiles rubs the bottom of his chin. “You say that like yours isn’t.”

“It’s not,” Derek says, and his voice practically screams **drop it**.

For once, Stiles does. Instead of pressing for more information about Derek’s pack, he finds himself looping back to all of the hidden reasons Derek and said pack might _actually_ want his help. After some serious internal warring Stiles looks up and says, “What changed?”

Derek doesn’t respond, he just lifts a single eyebrow.

“You obviously don’t think two heads are better than one, and certainly not _ours_. And even if you did, you already said that you have a pack and that I’d just be getting in the way. So – _what gives_?”

There’s an uncomfortable beat of silence, one where the two of them simply stare each other down, parsing something out. All Stiles sees is someone he doesn’t know if he can trust. He wonders what Derek sees – an enemy to keep close, maybe? Stiles is willing to guess it’s something similar to his own thoughts because Derek seems hesitant to share anything at all.

“Unfortunately, we need each other more than either of us are willing to admit.” The sentence is slow and labored, as if Derek were forcing himself to say it.

“You had no problem breaking into my apartment to steal case files, so you can’t possibly need my help _that_ badly anymore.” Stiles mutters this last bit to himself, “And I sure as hell don’t want _yours_.”

“This is bigger than the case files,” Derek begins, more tense than ever. And that’s saying something because the guy _always_ looks like he’s ready to burst at the seams whenever Stiles sees him. “Your spark allows you to do things I – _we_ – can’t. While I’m perfectly capable of killing this thing without you, doing so becomes harder and harder the longer you and I butt heads.”

“Fine,” Stiles says, and Derek seems to relax (marginally) for the two seconds in between that it takes Stiles to say, “You stay out of my way, I’ll stay out of yours. That way we don’t _have_ to work together.” He quickly skirts past Derek in an attempt to get away from the conversation altogether.

Unfortunately for Stiles, Derek grabs him by the arm as he passes. The shock that surged between them earlier is twice as painful this time, and suddenly all the breath is gone from Stiles’ lungs again. It can’t be any better for Derek because he grinds out his words, stubbornly unwilling to let go despite the amount of discomfort it is obviously causing him to hold on. “Unless you want _this_ to keep happening, we have to work together.”

Stiles crushes Derek’s fingers with his own in an attempt to break free, but to no avail. “Not if you stay the hell away from me.”

“Yes, _it will_. Your spark is ungrounded. Distance does nothing because your magic has already recognized me and it’s trying to take hold, which makes it infinitely hard for me to do my job.”

“How is that my fault?” Stiles wonders aggravatedly as he tries and fails to get away yet again. “And what does that even _mean_? My magic ‘recognized’ you?”

Derek finally lets go and looks down at his, now clawed, hand. He flexes his fingers until the claws recede and sighs. Stiles doesn’t miss the way he dutifully avoids the question, either.

A horrifying thought crosses Stiles’ mind as he realizes Derek is never going to answer him. “You don’t know – do you?”

“I do,” Derek snaps. “There are just pieces missing.”

Stiles' eyes widen and he puts his hands on either side of his head in an attempt to keep the world from spinning. “What exactly _do_ you know then?”

Derek sets his jaw, unwilling to share it would seem. Eventually he musters up the wherewithal to say, “Your spark reacts to mine because we’re –” he trails off.

Stiles flashes him an impatient look. “We’re _what_?”

“– Linked...” Derek finishes, miserable and vague all at once.

Stiles opens his mouth, another handful of questions perched on the tip of his tongue, but Derek holds up a hand. “I didn’t come here to play twenty questions. I came here to tell you that there’s going to be a meeting tomorrow night, and I expect you to be there.”

Stiles’ brow furrows. “I’m sorry – was there a question mark anywhere in there? Because it kinda sounded like you were ordering me to go.”

“It definitely wasn’t a question,” Derek says.

“What if I have something to do – like, oh I don’t know, _work_?” Stiles crosses his arms. “Werewolves work, right? Or do you guys have secret ties all over the place so you don’t have to?”

Derek rolls his eyes and skips right over that question. “Make it work. The meeting is at eight p.m., my apartment.”

Stiles lets out an impatient breath. “Have you considered the possibility that I might _start_ work around eight?”

“Call out. This is more important.” He turns toward the door before Stiles can get another word in.

 “You can’t just _make_ me go; you’re not my dad,” Stiles spits, raising his voice as Derek gets further from him. “If you need me so much why don’t you try being a little _nicer_.”

Derek doesn’t answer him, just grabs the door and damn near slams it behind himself. Stiles angrily flips off Derek’s disappearing figure while muttering obscenities to himself.

“I guess I’m going into work _early_ tomorrow,” he mutters as he drops his hands. Stiles makes it all the way to his room before he looks back at the front door and sticks his tongue out childishly.

~

“You look tired,” a voice comments, startling Stiles from where he was working on the features of a child’s face.

He takes a deep breath and tries to reign in the irritation simmering under his skin. He’s been irritable all morning, still thinking about his little conversation with Derek last night. When Stiles finally looks back he sees the new kid, Matt. “Yeah, well, _I am_.”

Matt cocks his head to the side. It’d almost be adorable if he didn’t look so eerily focused on Stiles. “Didn’t get enough sleep, or what?”

“Or what,” Stiles replies as he wipes his brush off on a rag. “It’s just been a long week.”

“You’re right about that.” Matt sighs. “What’s keeping you up?” He props himself against the gurney that Stiles borrowed to sit on right around the time he got too tired to stand. Melissa says he stole it, but Stiles likes to use the term “temporarily misappropriated.”

Stiles sets his things down and turns to Matt, a little confused by the ease in which he inserted himself into someone else’s business. Although, Matt could be trying to make friends. Stiles hasn’t exactly seen Matt hanging around with a bunch of people while he’s on break.

With that in mind Stiles restrains himself long enough to share. “Just this case my dad is working on.”

“Oh?” Matt says, obviously interested. He leans forward. “Does your dad work for the Sheriff’s Department, or what?”

Stiles snorts. “My dad _is_ the Sheriff.”

Matt’s eyebrows go up as he lets out a noise of interest. “That’s so cool. He’s focused on those animal attack cases, right?”

Stiles rubs his lips together, thinking. “Yeah, but – I don’t know it seems a little fishy to me.”

It’s _very_ fishy. There’s a fucking lizard killing people. Stiles just wants to figure out who the man behind the mask is.

“Man, I thought I was the only one,” Matt says.

Stiles scrunches his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

Matt lets out a long breath and crosses his arms. “It’s just… I was thinking about it the other day when I was at Tucker’s funeral – y’know, the mechanic – and I realized that it was probably more than just coincidence that _all_ the people turning up dead were people I went to high school with.” He lets out a dry laugh. “I won’t be going on any nighttime strolls through the town any time soon if I can avoid it.”

Stiles makes a face. He didn’t think anyone else was focused enough on these cases to even realize that or make any connections. Hell, Stiles went to high school with those guys too and even _he_ didn’t notice right away. To say the least, he’s surprised by how observant Matt is.

Drumming his fingers against the cotton bedding, Stiles finally responds, saying, “Yeah, but it’s not just that. All of them were on the swim team.”

Matt considers Stiles for a moment, quiet and still. He almost startles Stiles when he finally takes a breath again. “Wow,” he says as he breathes out, but there’s no inflection. “What do you think that means?”

Stiles raises an eyebrow. “I think it means someone has it in for the Beacon Hills swim team from eight or nine years ago and I want to know why.”

“Hmm.” Matt straightens himself out. “I’d be careful if I were you,” and it’s said friendly enough, “Because now it looks like whoever was going after them has moved on to other people.”

Stiles doesn’t have time to wonder how Matt knows so much because the nurse uncrosses his arms and looks at his watch only to say, “Looks like it’s time for me to head back. Talk to you later?”

“Sure,” Stiles says. He wouldn’t mind. Matt’s obviously pretty perceptive, and having an extra person to trade ideas about the case with wouldn’t hurt. Within the realm of safety of course, Stiles isn’t about to get his dad in trouble by including _another_ non-sworn civilian in half of the case.

Matt smiles then. “Awesome.” He turns to leave but stops when he remembers something. “Oh, hey, could you keep me updated – I mean, if it won’t get you in trouble? Tucker was a _really_ good friend of mine and if I can help take down whoever did this to him then… I don’t know I just –”

“Nah, I get it,” Stiles says with a rueful grin. “It’s always good to have closure.”

Matt nods, face grim. “Took the words right out of my mouth. See you later, Stiles.”

Stiles holds up a hand. “Later, dude.”

He lets out a sigh once Matt is gone and rubs the back of his right hand over his forehead. One of the downsides of being in such a small town is that no one is left unaffected by tragedy. Stiles is determined to meet this head on though. Apparently, Derek is too – and whoever this so-called pack consists of.

Stiles looks down at his own watch and frowns. There are only a few more hours in between Stiles and this “meeting.” He’s not exactly worried, but he is hesitant. Stiles sighs again, and this time his whole torso moves with the force of it. Eventually he decides it’s time for a break. From more than one thing.

~

“Do you believe in monsters?” Stiles asks his father over lunch. He swirls his curly fry around in ketchup and drops his face into his other hand, too tired to keep it up on its own.

His father pauses mid bite, clearly confused. He swallows the salad in his mouth, not without a bit of fanfare at how it tastes, and says, “Monsters?”

Stiles gestures with his fry saying, “Yeah like _vampires_ or – or bigfoot. Stuff like that,” and gets ketchup on the desk. He sheepishly cleans it up when his father levels him with a look.

“I don’t know kid,” he answers with a sigh. “I – your mom was the one that believed in that kind of stuff.”

The fry doesn’t taste as good as Stiles hoped it would when he eats it, but he has a feeling that has more to do with the conflicting taste in his mouth brought on by the mention of his mother. Not for the first time since he spoke to Deaton, Stiles wonders if she knew something about all of the weird shit going on in Beacon Hills. If Stiles got his otherworldliness from anyone it had to be her, he feels that much. Something deep inside him flares up from time to time whenever he thinks of her. It’s confusing.

Stiles lets out a tired sigh and finally says, “Yeah, I remember. She had so many stories.”

The sheriff seems to regret bringing it up and predictably moves past it to say, “I’m not sure what I believe.”

“What do you mean?”

His dad leans back in his chair and clasps his hands in front of himself, resting them right on his lower stomach. His face is worry worn and a little dark when he replies. “Some days I’m convinced everything is exactly the way it seems. The bad guy is always who we think it is, the guy always gets the girl at the end of the movie, and the sky is blue.”

Stiles lifts his head from his hand. “But…”

“ _But_ ,” his father picks up with a heavy breath outward, “Other times I get this feeling.”

“Explain, please.” Stiles’ skin prickles with unease. He pulls his hands from plain view and shoves them into the pockets of his zip-up. Just in case.

The sheriff makes a face. “I don’t – it’s complicated.”

“You can say that again,” Stiles says dryly.

“Why are you asking, anyway?” The sheriff wonders aloud.

Stiles shifts in his seat and looks through the cracked blinds in the office, too afraid to look his father in the eye for some reason. He shrugs. “Just curious. It’s like you said, sometimes you just get this feeling.”

“This about the case?”

“Yeah,” Stiles exhales. “It’s weird.”

His father lets out an amused huff. “You could definitely say that. But I don’t think bigfoot is the one going around killing kids from the high school swim team.”

Stiles frowns. “I know that much.” He shoves another curly fry into his mouth and chews thoughtfully. “It’s just – this isn’t like Beacon Hills.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” his father says.

“Why not?”

The sheriff twists his lips. “This isn’t the first time someone has gone around killing people in Beacon County.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “If this is about ‘The Slasher’ I swear to god –”

His dad glares at him and crosses his arms. “ _No_. This is about what happened when you were gone.” Stiles looks back at his father so quick the room almost spins. It earns him a smug look from his dad who says, “Glad I have your attention now.”

“Oh, whatever, just tell me what happened while I was away. No one will talk about it.”

The sheriff takes a deep breath. “It’s not much more than you already know. The only reason I say that it very much _is_ like Beacon Hills is because I heard the same whispers back when I was a deputy. Sightings of wolves the size of bears. Red eyes in the trees. Now it’s just louder.”

“Uh – okay that sounds _nothing_ like what I already know.”

His father sighs. “I’ve told you about this before. Your response was that there were no wolves in California and that someone could easily mistake the lens flare on an animal for glowing red eyes.”

Stiles grimaces. Back then he didn’t know werewolves were real. Back then lizards were firmly in the five to nine-inch range and Stiles didn’t have half a foot worth of scars in the making on his left side. “Still, what does that have to do with what happened while I was gone?”

“Some people feel the same way you do – they’re convinced that whatever is doing this isn’t a human at all.”

“And what do you think?” Stiles asks tentatively. He’s not so sure he wants the answer.

His father carefully considers him for a moment. “I think – they’re desperate.”

Stiles leans back in his chair and crosses his arms, unthinkingly mirroring his father. “Desperate for what though? Someone, or some _thing_ , to pin it on?”

“Yeah,” his father replies. “No one wants to believe they’ve been living alongside someone capable of murder, for years, without knowing. Wouldn’t _you_ feel better if it was some mythical beast and not the guy you see at the coffee shop every morning?”

~

Stiles chews on that thought for a while after lunch. As he passes by the singular coffee shop in town on his way back to work, he stops and looks inside.

Would he really feel better if he believed it was some fairytale monster killing people instead of, say, the local barista? Would being someone on the outside again who didn’t know the truth somehow be less stressful? Personally, Stiles doubts that blaming his problems on the boogeyman would help him sleep at night, but that’s just him.

He watches as the barista sets out someone’s drink, sees both the customer and employee exchange casual smiles, and for a moment Stiles feels as though he’s in the same Beacon Hills he grew up in before leaving for college. The one where autumns were foggy and humid, and summers were long and scorching hot; the same Beacon Hills where he had his first love and first heartbreak. The town he used to love.

His opinion may be tainted with personal bias, but Stiles would much rather the evil he knows than the one he doesn’t, and he has a feeling the other residents feel the same. As much as he loves Beacon Hills, he’s always been aware of the less than tasteful parts of the community – call it a consequence or the perks of being the son of a sheriff. _That_ stuff he could handle. B  & E’s, petty crime, and even the occasional murderer – those types of things came with any town and no one, not even Stiles, has ever needed to blame it on the Tooth Fairy.

Stiles is – in a twisted way – almost comfortable with that sort of ugliness. He can easily combat the things he has knowledge of. Fight fire with fire, use their weaknesses against them. But whispers of beasts unknown, ones even the _supernatural_ know nothing about? That’s not a comforting thought to him at all. Truthfully, Stiles isn’t quite sure he can _ever_ be as comfortable as he was before all this started.

He lets out a sigh, one laced with all his worries that seem to have compounded over the course of the day, and trudges up the stairs to his apartment once he’s back. He used to complain about taking the stairs, but ever since that demon lizard figured out how to use the elevator Stiles has taken a hard pass on those. He can theoretically jump from one story down to another on the stairs, but if he were to take the elevator, that’s it – he’d be trapped in a box, ripe for the picking.

Stiles instinctively turns toward his own door once on the third floor, but groans when he remembers his arrangements for the night. He would almost gleefully take bedpan duty over being trapped in a room full of wolves right now. It’s worse when he looks at his watch. He frowns upon seeing the bright red numbers reading _7:43 pm_ staring back at him. No nap for him, then.

He almost considers skipping the meeting for a second, but he knows he’d never hear the end of it. _So_ , Stiles turns right back around and stands in front of the door to Derek’s apartment, nervously readying himself, but before he can knock on the door it swings open.

“Uh –”

“You must be Stiles,” a sharp-toothed blonde says. She looks like something out of one of Stiles’ high school wet dreams. Y’know, before he started leaning more towards men. Her hair falls in perfect little waves, and her eyes are the kind of brown that suck you in and demand attention.

Something like jealousy creeps up Stiles’ spine, and Stiles can’t place its origin for the life of him. He guesses this must be Derek’s girlfriend. Makes sense. They’re both the same brand of terrifyingly hot. Leather jacket and all. It’s enough to make Stiles stutter again. “You – I – do I know you?”

She smirks and gives Stiles a lingering once over. “No, but I wouldn’t mind it if you did.”

Stiles can’t help but blush, or he assumes that’s what he does because his face feels very warm suddenly. Before he can come up with some sort of witty reply, Derek steps into view and shoots the blonde a look. “Erica, go sit with the others.”

She lets out a put-upon sigh and says, “Yes, Derek.” Her tone is dangerously close to that of an admonished child who’s not taking a punishment seriously.

It clicks then – probably not a girlfriend – she’s _pack_. Stiles squints and watches her go. “She’s… interesting.”

Derek makes a face, like he’s disappointed in Stiles too. “You’re early.”

Stiles lifts an eyebrow and turns back to Derek. “I could always _leave_.”

“You said you had work.” Derek says as he looks Stiles over slowly.

Being under such a scrutinizing gaze makes Stiles feel uncomfortable, so he zips his jacket up a little further, frowning at Derek as he does. “And _you_ said I _had_ to be here, so I took the morning shift. You’re **welcome**. Now can I come in or not?”

Derek steps aside and motions toward the living area with a nod of his head. “Living room. I’ll be back in a minute.” And then he’s gone.

Stiles presses his lips together and takes a moment to observe his surroundings. It’s pretty dismal, to be honest _._ And that’s probably on the nicer end of the spectrum of descriptors for this place. Decorations are few and far between, and what _is_ around is monochromatic. It’s like being in the office space of a tax collector, but only if that tax collector was incredibly minimalist and sat on a wooden box instead of a plush computer chair. Okay, maybe that’s dramatic, but still, Derek’s apartment stands in stark contrast with Stiles’ messy and _very_ lived in space.

“You can come in here, we don’t bite. _Hard_ ,” that same simpering voice from the door says, this time from the comfort of the living room.

A smirk creeps across Stiles’ face. “I was just admiring the décor.”

He gets a laugh in return as he turns the corner to enter the living space. “It’s okay. We all know Derek lives like he’s in a cave.”

Stiles snorts. “Glad it’s not just me that thinks so.”

The blonde from the earlier stands from where she was wedged in between two men. One looks like he’s consuming half the couch with the width of his shoulders alone and the other who looks like walking a marble statue and twice as pale. She cocks her hip to the side slightly and sticks out the hand that’s not on her hip. “I didn’t get to introduce myself. Erica.”

Stiles hesitates for a moment and then shakes it, regretting it almost instantly. Her grip is unnaturally strong and warm, uncomfortably so. When Stiles looks back up he catches her eyes shine bright gold for an almost imperceptible fraction of time. He almost forgets to let go of her hand, too busy wondering if he really saw what he thinks he did. “Do all of your eyes do that?”

“Do what?” She asks, like she doesn’t know, and then moves past it altogether. “Oh, and these two sulking on the couch are Isaac –” Erica points to the pale blond that looks like a statue crafted from marble. “– and Boyd.” She smiles and gestures to the man beside the vampire. He’s equally statuesque and cut like Adonis, but he has considerably less hair and a lot more muscle mass than Isaac. Boyd’s earthy brown eyes warm considerably when Erica addresses him, but then he’s right back to being stoic.

Stiles takes a moment just to observe. In these few seconds he decides that, despite seeming wildly different in temperament, all of three of them are freakishly hot – much in the same way as Derek. Whether that’s a werewolf thing or a them thing remains to be seen. Either way, Stiles feels a little inadequate.

And yet, instead of introducing himself he says, “Are leather jackets mandatory in your little club or was that all on accident?”

Isaac rolls his eyes and rests his head in his hand, looking toward the kitchen. He raises his eyebrows at something behind Stiles, but Stiles already knows what’s there – _who_ is there. Stiles finally understands why it always felt like he could tell when Derek was looking at him – his “spark” and Derek do _not_ mix well apparently.

Derek clasps his hands behind his back as he enters and raises an eyebrow at Stiles, as if that will cow him into sitting with the rest of them. Instead, Stiles mirrors the look and says, “So, are you gonna tell me what was so important about this meeting that I just _couldn’t_ miss it?”

Stiles hears more than he sees Erica laugh, though she quickly stifles it with a cough when Derek gives her a nasty look. When he’s satisfied that she’s finished, Derek turns back to Stiles and says, “Sit.”

“Maybe if you say please I’ll think about it,” Stiles says icily as he goes to stand near the others.

The idea of pleasantries like _please_ and _thank you_ seem to be beneath Derek, because he ignores Stiles altogether and instead addresses the pack sitting on the couch. “I assume you’ve introduced yourselves.”

Erica looks between Derek and Stiles before saying, “We did. Don’t think _they_ caught his name, though.”

Derek casts Stiles a sideward glance and raises his eyebrows, as if to say, “ _Well?_ ” To which Stiles rolls his eyes and turns to the others, lifting a hand in greeting. “Stiles. Resident human.”

Boyd nods in return, a man of few words it would seem, while Erica offers up a sharp grin. Isaac eyes him warily but offers a muted smile eventually. It takes a moment before Stiles realizes all of them are staring at him, as if waiting.

Stiles looks to Derek and says, “ _Soooo_ , are we gonna talk about what’s going on, or did you just bring me here to see if your werewolf friends approved?”

“All of us already know what’s going on,” Derek says. “We’re _here_ because we need to come up with a plan.”

Stiles leans forward, hoping that Derek will elaborate. When he doesn’t, Stiles says, “And you don’t have any ideas already?”

Erica lets out a breathy sigh and answers for Derek. “We haven’t been able to come up with any – not everyone has access to police reports, y’know.” She smiles, sickly saccharine, and says, “So far we’ve been limited to tracking the kanima, trying to pin down who it is.”

“Alright,” Stiles begins, thinking. “What are your theories?”

Isaac snorts and finally sits up to join the conversation. “We don’t have any. We had his territory down to a three-mile radius for a while, but then the trail went cold.”

“What’s important right now –” Derek says, interrupting the current line of thought, “– is matching your information and ours.” He looks to Stiles and carefully considers him. “So, what do _you_ know?”

Stiles outright laughs. “Look, just because you got me to come to this little meeting doesn’t mean I trust you enough to go spilling everything I know.”

Before Derek can fire back with something decidedly unpleasant, Erica cuts in to ease the tension. “Fine. For everything you share with us, we’ll do the same. Fifty-fifty split.”

It’s a fair trade, but Stiles is still uncomfortable, so he bargains. “I’m outnumbered by you guys four to one. How about for every piece of information I share, you guys give me two back?”

Derek cuts into the blossoming business deal and says, “This isn’t a hostage negotiation, we’re supposed to be working _together_.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” Stiles drawls. “Last week you were allergic to team work and now you want to be buddies because I have an in with the Sheriff’s Department.”

“I don’t need _you_ to get my hands on that information,” Derek says, his voice now falsely honeyed. “No matter how much easier it is to have you here, we are perfectly fine without you.”

Stiles’ skin itches, and he has a feeling that if he looked down he’d find that his hands were purple. He shoves them in his pockets and says, “Then why am I **here**? Because I was under the impression you needed me for something, and if that’s not the case then I will _happily_ leave.”

When Derek doesn’t so much as respond, Stiles throws his hands up in a fit of irritation. “Forget it. I don’t even know why I bothered coming. I knew this was a load of crap,” he mutters.

 “You. **Wait** ,” Erica orders Stiles as he makes a move for the door. And it _is_ an order, because her voice sounds forceful for the first time tonight. She turns her attention to Derek, gaze sharp enough to cut, and says, “And _you_ – stop acting like we can do this without him because you know we can’t and it’s starting to pose a real _problem_.” The last word is spoken like a mother hissing her words through her teeth when her child misbehaves at the store.

Erica takes a deep breath and falls back into the couch. “Just give him what he wants, it’s not like he’s asking for a lot.”

Eventually Derek concedes, though not for his own sake. Stiles can tell that much. He nods once, giving his silent permission to continue, but when he looks back at Stiles there seem to be a thousand words on the tip of his tongue. None of them are polite, either.

Normally, Stiles would just cut his losses and move on. Derek is a stubborn asshole, and an indecisive one at that. Unfortunately, and Stiles is loath to admit this, working alone is more dangerous than not at this point. A point made all too clear when Stiles first met the kanima. So, Stiles grudgingly makes his way back to the living room and sits in single seat chair that’s adjacent to the couch. He keeps his eyes on Derek the entire time, though.

Boyd clears his throat in an attempt to draw the attention elsewhere and says, “What do you want to know?”

Stiles sighs and rubs a hand over his face in an effort to break the spell (read: curse) between him and Derek. He finally looks away to say, “It’d probably be best to start with something about werewolves considering I know next to nothing about you.”

Erica smiles, her grin toothy and wild. “You came to the right place then, but first, _our_ question.”

Stiles leans back into the cushion waiting behind him and brings his right leg up to rest on his left thigh before folding his hands in his lap. “Alright, shoot.”

All three werewolves on the couch look to Derek at once, which he doesn’t seem to be happy about. The muscles in his jaw strain, but eventually he loosens up enough to ask a question, even though it doesn’t sound like one. “What do you know about the people who have been killed.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “I’m gonna need you to be more specific. That’s like five questions.”

“Fine,” Derek grates out. “Is there anything connecting them to each other?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Stiles says, not without a little bit of venom laced in between the letters. Any other day he’d elaborate, but Derek is pissing him off.

“ _And_?” Derek leads.

With a smirk, Stiles says, “And I think that was your one question.” He bats his eyelashes and turns back to the other three. “My turn.”

Isaac rolls his eyes, but Erica and Boyd seem nonplussed by the exchange, if not a little amused. Boyd speaks up, answering Stiles’ earlier request. “You already know that we’re werewolves.” Stiles nods, so he continues. “So, pick something specific you want to know about.”

Stiles looks at Derek briefly and says, “Pack dynamics. Derek is bad at explaining.”

Isaac mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “ _That’s_ an understatement,” under his breath. He gets a nasty look from Derek as a result, but it doesn’t seem to bother the blond.

Erica shifts to face Stiles a little more directly. “Pack is just a term for a group of werewolves – like a flock of birds or a school of fish. Derek happens to be our leader, and we’re his betas.”

Stiles’ eyebrows climb upward. “So, there’s a hierarchy.”

It wasn’t meant to be a question, but Erica answers it nonetheless, effectively robbing Stiles of his second question. “Yes. Now, explain the connection between the victims of the attacks.”

It goes on like this for at least an hour – Stiles answers a few questions about the murders and he asks a few about werewolves in return. Stiles learns that Derek is a born werewolf and that he’s the Alpha of their pack while Isaac, Erica, and Boyd are all bitten werewolves who joined said pack in search of better lives. Judging by the underlying bitterness in Isaac’s voice, not all of them have found that better life. At least not quite.

But none of that is particularly amazing or surprising. In fact, the most important piece of information on the list of things Stiles learns about ends up being something small that Erica seems to think is inconsequential. To be honest, if Derek hadn’t visibly tensed when she mentioned it Stiles probably wouldn’t have thought much of the statement to begin with, especially because Derek mentioned it before the meeting.

“Every pack is different,” She explains. “But, most incorporate both humans and wolves. There are just certain things that werewolves can’t do that humans _can_.”

“Like what?” Stiles asks, leading.

If the look Derek shoots the three betas is anything to judge by, then Stiles is willing to bet this is not a topic that Derek wants to broach just yet. His point is further proved by the fact that no one really answers the question after that.

Stiles lets out an irritated sigh and rubs his thumb and forefinger over his eyes before pinching his nose. “Look, I’m risking a lot by giving you guys this information. I can’t do this – _whatever_ this is – if you keep shutting me out whenever I ask a question you don’t like.”

“It’s not relevant to the task at hand,” Derek says, arms crossed over his chest again. “In case you’ve forgotten, we’re here to discuss the murders and how to stop the kanima.”

Stiles takes a deep breath in an attempt to steady himself, but the excess oxygen only seems to fuel the fire sparking in his chest. “Unfortunately, I **haven’t** ,” Stiles seethes. “But _you_ sure seem to be forgetting who saved your ass that night.”

“Well maybe if you –”

“Do **not** finish that sentence,” Stiles interrupts, standing to meet Derek head on. “I am not a child and I’m sure as hell not one of your betas, so I do _not_ want to hear your ‘if you had stayed out of this’ lecture again.” He lets out a short and sharp breath. “I’m not asking about this shit because I secretly have it out for you. Although, maybe if you weren’t such an **asshole** you wouldn’t have to worry about that!”

Something like surprise crosses Derek’s face, though it’s gone in a flash. The emotion is quickly replaced with a steely mask of indifference, Derek’s jaw set, his lips a thin line. A month ago Stiles would’ve believed in the lie Derek was acting out right now, but he can feel how angry Derek is. What’s worrying is that Stiles isn’t exactly sure _how_ he can feel that.

“ _Okaaaaay_ ,” Isaac lilts, desperately trying to diffuse the now palpable tension in the air. He pushes himself up by his knees and says, “I think this is a good place to stop, don’t you Erica?”

“Yeah…” She looks between Stiles and Derek, who are still glaring at one another, and then to Boyd for help. He only shrugs. “Maybe we should try this again another day. Tensions are obviously high –”

“No, you know what? Don’t even worry about it.” Stiles gathers himself and offers the three a tense smile. “It was nice meeting all of you. I only wish I could say the same for your _Alpha_.”

As he brushes past Derek on the way out, he stops and says, “Actually, I’m not finished.”

Derek steps forward and looks down at Stiles, though not by much. There’s a challenge in his eyes, a warring of greys and greens fighting to resist the electric blue that’s tugging at his irises, but he doesn’t say anything more than, “I wasn’t aware that you ever _started_.”

Stiles fights the urge to grind his teeth together. “I have, just not with _you_. Maybe if you got over yourself long enough to hold a meaningful conversation then you’d remember that the kanima is a were-creature too, one whose weaknesses are all too similar to yours.”

Stiles dutifully ignores the harsh whispers being traded behind him as he goes. He can’t be bothered to listen, and he doesn’t want to. Instead, as he reaches the door, he leaves Derek with one last thing to think about. “You’re not the only one I could’ve gone to for information, either, by the way. I just figured I’d suck it up because we were after the same things.”

~

When Stiles left Derek’s apartment, it had been with the intent to ignore him for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, Stiles didn’t factor the betas into that plan. He makes it all of three days before Erica finds him, a stern look on her face and tired eyes.

Stiles is getting into his jeep after having lunch with his father when he spots that familiar wave of blonde curls in his rearview mirror.

“We need to talk,” she says by way of greeting.

He lets his head hit the headrest behind him and sighs. “What’s to talk about?”

Erica moves from behind Roscoe and opens the passenger door, inviting herself inside. “I think you know.”

“I’m pretty sure that bridge has been burned to the ground and then some.”

She snorts. “Drive, this is going to take a bit.”

Stiles raises an eyebrow and looks over at her. “You do realize I have things to do, right? Like, I’m not out here for _fun_.”

“Just do it, Stilinski,” she huffs with a roll of her eyes.

“I’m not even gonna ask how you know my last name,” he mutters as he starts his jeep.

Erica just hums. “I never forget a pretty face. We went to high school together, same year and everything, not that I expect you to remember me.”

Stiles looks at her for a moment, _really_ looks. It takes him a solid thirty seconds, but then it dawns on him. “Erica _Reyes_?”

“The one and only.” She flashes him a cocky smile. “But that’s not what I’m here to talk about.”

After backing out of the parking space, Stiles says, “And what _are_ you here to talk about?”

“Derek.” At Stiles’ derisive snort she sighs and says, “Look, we all know Derek isn’t exactly winning any awards for his lovely personality.”

Stiles laughs. “No kidding.”

“ _But_ , he has good reason to be wary.” She looks at Stiles in the rearview mirror and asks, seemingly off-topic, “Do you remember that big house fire in the preserve back when we were kids?”

Stiles nods, taking a deep breath. He remembers his father coming home smelling like ash that night, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Yeah, it belonged to the Hale family – almost all of them died.”

“Almost all of them,” She agrees. “Except for their children.”

Stiles stops at the next light a little bit harder than he intended to as a horrible feeling starts to swell in the pit of his stomach when he realizes just who one of those children is. Stiles had only seen Derek Hale once or twice when he was in his youth; his features were softer then, his eyes more bright and mischievous than the cold and calculating blue-green they are now.

Erica wastes no time beating around the bush and continues. “It’s not my place to explain what happened, and you may never get an explanation at all, but you need to know that what happened that night was no accident.” She motions for him to take a right and stop. “The point is, Derek lost the majority of his family because they were werewolves, and the people who did it accomplished it by using their weaknesses against them.”

A silver car pulls up across the street and Erica hops out of the jeep once it’s stopped. “Derek wouldn’t have asked for your help if he didn’t trust in your abilities, whatever those might be – asking for help isn’t exactly one of his strong suits. Neither is trusting outsiders.”

She’s just about to leave when she looks back to add, “I’m not saying you should talk to him, but I think that if you did it alone he might be more willing to share this time. Besides, it’s not just _him_ who needs _your_ help.” With that she saunters away and gets into the waiting car.

Stiles isn't sure what to do with this information. In fact, he’s pretty sure he can never mention it to Derek because Erica probably shouldn’t have mentioned it to him in the first place. It doesn’t really change anything, anyway. All Erica did was offer Stiles a bit of clarity, though not much.

Sighing, Stiles gets back onto the road and heads to his apartment. There are a million and one things rattling around in his brain, but there’s one thing that bothers him more than the rest: Derek’s inconsistency – his hot and cold attitude. One minute he’s trying to reel Stiles in, and the next he’s keeping him at arm’s length.

Stiles isn’t even sure why he cares. Derek is an asshole; he broke into Stiles’ apartment, refused to thank Stiles for saving his ass, and then had the nerve to demand that they work together all while withholding any and all pertinent information on his end.

Stiles hates that he still feels so compelled to reach Derek. It’s like somewhere, deep down inside, there’s this unyielding pull that keeps drawing Stiles toward Derek like a moth to a waiting flame. Stiles wishes he could chalk it all up to attraction. Derek is like something out of a wet dream, all dark hair and pale blue eyes framed by a face that was chiseled by the gods themselves. It doesn’t hurt that he has a nice ass or that he can rock a leather jacket, either. But, believe it or not, Stiles is willing to overlook how gorgeous someone is if their personality is shit. Unfortunately, that leaves Stiles with nothing to blame the insistent tug on, which only makes him want to give in to it.

And give in to it he does, which is how he ends up outside of Derek’s apartment, knocking on the door…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this update. Comments are always appreciated, but not necessary. They just help me cater my writing to your tastes, say, if you mentioned something you'd like to see or want to know about. Thank you for reading, and thank you to all the kind readers who have been encouraging me/cheering me on<3


	6. Entelechy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *jazz hands* I made it just in time to be considered fashionably late! Here's a little pick-me-up to get you through the week.
> 
> But first, some updates:
> 
> 1\. I am officially starting Grad School™ in late August, so all chapter updates after then may take a little bit longer. Blease be batient. I am but a humble spec on this planet with executive dysfunction and perfectionism issues, so sometimes it takes me a while to get things done and even more for me to be happy with them.
> 
> 2\. This chapter is slightly over 13,000 words, which is almost double the length of some of the earlier chapters. I have a feeling that's not a problem since some of you may have been dying for an update, but in the future the chapters may or may not be as long as this one. Grab a chair.
> 
> 3\. In the future, I will be making small notes in the story summary so that you guys can track my progress. This is a courtesy, that way you guys know I haven't died when there's a little over a month in between chapters being posted.
> 
> 4\. Some inconsistencies in earlier chapters have been edited. I goofed on some ages for background people, but it's okay. I fixed it and everything is _GREAT._
> 
> 5\. This is unbeta'd, feel free to point out any spelling errors. Those bug me like none other so I will be eternally grateful.

Stiles steels himself as he waits for Derek to come to the door. He tells himself that he’ll behave, maybe even play nice considering everything that Erica told him. Then Derek goes and opens his mouth.

He hasn’t even opened the _door_ yet when he says, “ _What do you want_?” in what has to be the snidest tone possible, irritating Stiles all over again.

Rolling his eyes is pointless when Derek can’t see him, but Stiles does it anyway as he says, “Open the door,” in a voice he hopes is equally abrasive. There’s a beat of silence in which Stiles starts to feel a little bit guilty for being so bossy though, so he adds, “ _Please_.”

Derek does as he’s asked, albeit with a sigh. He’s shirtless and sweaty when he opens the door, and Stiles cannot be blamed for the way his eyes track up Derek’s body. He also can’t be blamed for the way his voice cracks, because _damn_. “I came –” he clears his throat and tries again. “I came over to talk. To _you_.”

Derek looks over his shoulder and then back at Stiles. “I would hope, since no one else lives here.”

“Not like I would know. You’re not exactly big on sharing,” Stiles grumbles before crossing his arms. When nothing happens for a _painfully_ long ten seconds, Stiles says, “Are you gonna let me in, or are we gonna have to finish this pissing contest where everyone else can hear?”

The door slides open and Derek steps to the side. “Make it quick.”

“Sure. Wouldn’t want to interrupt your daily brooding session,” Stiles quips as he enters. “Or maybe you were trying to make the paint peel off the walls by scowling at it.”

“ _Stiles_.”

He turns to Derek. “Hm?”

“What do you want?”

Stiles lets out something between a laugh and a sigh. “I don’t know.” Derek raises his eyebrows, but before he can say anything Stiles continues, “It’s complicated, alright?”

“It really isn’t.” Derek pulls the towel that was tucked into his belt loop out and wipes his face before tossing it to the side. “You want something. **What is it**?”

He’s not entirely wrong, but the forcefulness of the statement ruffles Stiles’ feathers nonetheless. It takes a fair amount of willpower for him to bite his tongue, and even then he can’t quite manage to be cordial. “Are you ever _not_ a dick?”

“Are you ever not obnoxious?” Derek returns, irritatingly quick.

Stiles clenches his teeth so hard he thinks he hears them creaking. He takes a deep breath, a witty jibe right on the tip of his tongue, but he stops himself. “You know what, I’m gonna ignore that.”

He brushes past Derek and into the living room. It’s equal parts because he wants to get away from Derek and because he doesn’t want to leave the apartment in frustration before this conversation is over. Distantly, Stiles thinks about how much easier it would be to work with the betas sans Derek – hell, even just Erica – but he scraps that thought to say, “Look, I don’t trust you, and I know for a fact that you don’t trust me either.”

Somewhere in between Stiles turning his back and speaking, Derek managed to find a shirt to put on. He pulls it over his head while he follows Stiles into the heart of the apartment, and once it’s on he says, “Did you just come here to state the obvious, or did you have a point to make.”

“ _I’m not finished_ ,” Stiles snaps. He closes his eyes for a moment, regaining his composure, and then starts again. “There are things I’m learning – things that I’ve _repeatedly_ been told are nothing more than fairytales my entire life – and all I have to fact-check with right now is some ancient book. And only a quarter of it is in English as far as I can tell.”

He begins to pace, anxiously fiddling with his jacket as he goes. “If I’m wrong about something in that book, even something small, I could end up getting myself killed.”

“Which is why I told you to stay out of this in the first place,” Derek supplies, near haughty.

Stiles stops and glares at Derek before yanking up his shirt. He points at the angry marks on his left side, now mostly healed, and says, “It’s a _little_ too late to back out now, doncha think?”

He doesn’t bother waiting for Derek to reply, just shoves his shirt back down and continues. “You can kill the kanima without my help, we both know that, but I get the feeling you’d rather neutralize the problem and have the Sheriff’s Department take care of the rest on the more, uh, _human_ side of the case.”

“Maybe it’s for selfish reasons, or maybe you actually care and want the victims’ families to have some sense of closure, _I don’t know_.” Stiles brings his hands up and makes an abortive gesture, unsure of what he’s doing or where this is going, and sighs. “My point is – I _want_ to be able to trust you. I want us to be able work together, but I can only do that if you let me, which means you’re gonna have to fucking share at some point. You’re obviously going to make this a lot harder than it needs to be no matter what, but I think _I_ can manage if you can.”

Derek is eerily focused on Stiles, like he’s trying to read – or listen – between the lines. Searching for something. He replies once he’s found whatever it was he was looking for, though Stiles can’t say what. “And what makes you think I want that anymore?”

“Because you let me in,” Stiles says, matter of fact.

“That means nothing.”

“Can you cut the tough guy bullshit for like five seconds, please?” Stiles has stopped moving altogether in favor of turning to face Derek, though he’d really love to be looking anywhere else. Like at a brick wall, maybe. At least the brick wall wouldn’t argue. At least the brick wall wouldn’t look at Stiles like he’s an idiot.

Stiles rubs his hands up his face, tired of looking at Derek, muttering to himself, “ _God_ , I have no idea why Erica thought this would somehow be easier if I talked to you alone.”

That seems to catch Derek’s attention. His entire body stiffens into a rigid line of pure tension. “Erica spoke to you.”

Stiles shoots him a withering look and holds out a hand in question, _almost_ at a loss for words. “Is that seriously what you chose to focus on – out of everything I’ve said so far. _That’s_ what got you?”

“What did she say?”

“None of your damn business,” Stiles scoffs, his face scrunching up ridiculously.

Derek looks taken aback for all of one millisecond, but his fleeting surprise seems to be directed more at the fact that Stiles has taken an _actual_ tone with him than his unwillingness to share. “Pack business _is_ my business.”

“ **Bite me**. I’m not a member of your pack.” Stiles crosses his arms, resolute.

Derek stalks forward, probably in an effort to intimidate Stiles, and says, “You’re here in _my_ home, asking for _my_ help. You’re hardly in a position to withhold information right now.”

The intimidation tactic doesn’t work. At least not entirely. Something in Stiles wants to back down and _run_ , but the irritated part of him wins out, and that has him jabbing Derek in the sternum as he hisses the following, “Let me make something perfectly clear, _Derek_. We might be linked in some vague and mystical bullshit way, but you don’t own me and you sure as hell don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“If you want to work with the pack then you _will_ follow my rules,” Derek growls.

“I thought you weren’t interested in working together anymore,” Stiles sneers.

They’re incredibly close now, all their posturing bringing them within a hairsbreadth of one another. Not for the first time, Stiles’ skin prickles with unease until that damned electricity frees itself from his skin; and not for the first time, Derek’s eyes do that weird hop-skip-jump from their resting seafoam green to that unnatural icy blue.

Derek starts to say something, but it dies on his tongue as the charge builds between them. Stiles feels it too, but he can’t bring himself to do anything about it. Just when it feels like something is finally going to pop, Derek backs away. The distance, minimal as it is, seems to help snap both of them out of their momentary shared stupor.

 “What’s in it for you?” Derek eventually manages to ask.

Stiles bites back the exasperated sigh that so desperately wants to escape him. Whatever that moment was, it’s gone, and Stiles is both grateful and confusingly disappointed by its passing. “Aside from everything I _just_ said? Peace of mind, for starters, and it’s not like I’d be the only one benefitting from this situation. Oh and, _believe it or not_ , I don’t exactly enjoy fighting with you every single time we’re within five feet of each other.”

“You seem to have no trouble making exceptions.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, you seem to know just how to push my buttons. _Congrats_. Now can you just tell me what it is that you want from me that will get you to let your weird grudge go?”

Derek looks him over, a broad sweep of the eyes, and says, “Nothing.”

“ _Nothing?_ ” Stiles balks.

Derek does something in between a shrug and a nod. “There’s nothing you can give me that will make me trust you.”

The statement feels like a hot knife in the gut. Stiles opens his mouth to say something – anything – but finds there’s nothing he _wants_ to. Nothing that will help, anyway. So, for the first time in a long time, Stiles doesn’t say anything at all.

He tells himself that if he makes it out the door, this will be the last time he (willingly) speaks to Derek. Stiles tells himself he won’t come back again because he doesn’t have any extra energy to expend after all these late nights he’s spent hunched over his laptop trying to piece together this case. And he _keeps_ telling himself all the various reasons he won’t come back – all in an effort to cow the misplaced feeling of wrongness in his core that’s growing with every step he makes toward the door.

“I wasn’t finished,” Derek says evenly.

Stiles stops, his hand only _just_ clasping the doorknob. Talk about waiting until the last second. “It sure _sounded_ like it.”

Suddenly Derek is a solid presence at his back. Close again, but not enough to touch. Just enough for Stiles to feel the unforgiving wall of heat radiating off the guy. Derek leans forward, and his voice is near a whisper when he says, “I want you to _show_ me you’re worthy of the pack’s trust. Of _mine_. Information won’t cut it.”

Stiles shivers involuntarily and closes his eyes. “Pushing you out of the way of a venomous lizard wasn’t enough?”

“That was _before_ you knew what I was.”

Stiles finds himself unable to keep from joking to diffuse the bone-gnawing tension. “I definitely knew you were an asshole before I pushed you out of the way.” Turning around to face Derek, and wholly uncomfortable when he realizes how close they are, Stiles says, “Besides, what makes you think that changes anything?”

“It changes everything,” Derek says, and there’s an uncomfortable note of finality in those three words.

“Not as much as you think,” Stiles replies, quiet, suddenly nervous. “You might be an asshole, but as far as I can tell you’re not an awful person. I would’ve pushed you out of the way no matter _what_ I thought you were in that moment.”

Derek’s face does – _something_. It’s wholly unreadable, a wisp of an emotion that’s there and gone in a flash. He’s out of Stiles’ space altogether this time when he backs away to say, “I’ll work with you, but you _will_ follow my rules when you’re with the pack.”

“Fine,” Stiles huffs, relenting. He says it like he’s paying for it, and he knows he is. He knows damn well he’ll probably regret agreeing to that at some point in the future; he’s just hoping that it’s later rather than sooner. On the off chance that it’s not, he decides to amend his previous statement by adding, “On one condition.”

Derek crosses his arms. “And that is?”

“You treat me like an equal. I’m not just some convenient tool for you to have handy every once in a while.”

“There’s nothing convenient about you,” Derek mutters.

“And yet you insist that you need me for something other than case files; something that you could just as easily use someone else for.” Stiles shoves his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “Don’t let whatever that is dictate how you treat me.”

Derek is still for a moment, so much so that Stiles almost misses the tiny nod he gives in return. “So long as you extend me the same courtesy.”

A rueful smile plays at Stiles’ lips. “There’s nothing convenient about you either.”

~

Stiles looks down at Derek’s contact information in his phone, still surprised that their meeting yesterday ended in mutual agreement instead of some sort of physical fight. For a moment it almost felt as if they – Stiles isn’t sure what, actually. He just knows that whenever he’s around Derek he feels like he’s caught in a magnetic field. Like he’s being pulled in and repelled all at once.

Despite having come to their tentative agreement to work together, and despite exchanging contact information in order to ask for _help_ – whatever the hell that means to them – Stiles doesn’t quite feel like he can just text Derek, “ _So, tell me more about werewolves_.” He remembers how spectacularly that went last time, and as great as his chat with Erica was, he’d like to avoid another pep talk from one of the betas about how misunderstood their leader is.

 So, Stiles looks down at Derek’s contact information in his phone, and he frowns. It feels as though he’s simultaneously gotten somewhere but gone nowhere at all. Eventually he comes to the conclusion, or maybe the assumption, that he definitely can’t ask Derek anything yet. So, Stiles sets his phone down on the coffee table in front of him and answers all the questions he wishes he could just ask Derek on his own.

He ends up spending what feels like the entire day pouring over the bestiary Deaton loaned him. Between his arguments with Derek, the mural, and going over the “normal” side of the case, Stiles hasn’t exactly made the time to go over the more supernatural aspects. In truth, he still isn’t going over the entry he _really_ needs to be going over right now, but there’s something to be said about knowing your enemy – _er_ – ally? Enemally?

**_Moving on!_ **

 Stiles lets out a triumphant noise when he finds the entry on werewolves. He wasn’t kidding when he said he could get his information elsewhere, he just would’ve preferred to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. Or rather, the werewolf’s mouth. It also would’ve been easier.

Considering the fact that the majority of the bestiary is written in Latin and holds multiple entries for similar beings, Stiles can’t exactly be faulted for the fact that it took him almost two hours to find it though. He was halfway through an entry on a supernatural wolf from Inuit folklore before he figured out he was in the wrong place. Needless to say, it’s been a bit of an uphill battle.

Stiles takes a deep breath and hums as he sifts through the mess of Latin scrawl laid before him. Lucky for him, someone has taken the time to translate a few portions of the following pages, so it’s not as much work as it could’ve been.

**_Werewolves: the man and the moon._ **

_A subspecies of shapeshifters, werewolves are often thought of as being half-human and half-wolf, though this is untrue. While they usually appear in human form and possess the ability to shift to varying degrees, werewolves are neither man nor wolf, but both at all times – an inextricable pair. The relationship between these two “sides” is maintained by a spark of magic specific to shapeshifters which can further be separated into sparks specific to alpha werewolves and beta werewolves._

_Whether born a werewolf, those descended from a long-lost werewolf ancestor, or bitten by an Alpha werewolf and turned, all werewolves possess the same base abilities as a result of their spark. These include: shapeshifting, heightened senses, accelerated healing, enhanced agility and enhanced strength, as well as pain transference and memory transference._

_A werewolf’s control of these abilities is often dependent on their status in a pack and whether or not they were **born** a werewolf. Though there are few differences between werewolves who were bitten and those who were born, the few that exist are important. Born werewolves possess an innate control of their shapeshifting abilities that surpasses that of most bitten werewolves. Most of this can be attributed to the fact that born werewolves are raised knowing of their power, trained by their parents or pack members, but there is a great deal that comes instinctually to those born that bitten werewolves often have trouble grasping. This is, most commonly, shapeshifting._

_With time, training, and the possession of a stable anchor, bitten werewolves are able to shift as fluidly as any born werewolf. The degree to which a bitten werewolf can shift, however, is limited. Because bitten werewolves are gifted a bit of their maker’s spark, rather than possessing a spark of their own from birth, they are unable to enter what is often referred to as an “Alpha Shift” – otherwise known as a full shift._

_Despite its name, the Alpha Shift is not exclusive to werewolves of Alpha standing; however, it is often easier to sustain as an Alpha werewolf due to the amount of power and control it requires. Even then, the ability to fully shift into a wolf is rare, most often observed in werewolf packs with ancient lineages._

There’s a break in the text to accommodate a few, small diagrams. One looks a lot like the Vitruvian Man, but instead of the head of a human there’s that of a wolf. Where there should be human hands there are crude, clawed ones, and so on and so forth.

The next diagram is that of what looks to be a human face, only more… animalistic. The person’s ears are pointed and rough, and their teeth are long and sharp. Stiles absently traces the lines of the figure’s sharpened canines and thinks back to when Derek shifted in front of him. Derek’s fangs were sharper, bigger, but his brow line was a lot less pronounced than this depiction.

Stiles is in the middle of tracing the figure’s eyebrows – or lack thereof – when he’s startled by the shrill _ding_ of his phone. He spares a glance at the screen, but ignores Scott’s, “ _Hey_ ,” and locks his phone. Whatever it is, Scott will have to wait. He hasn’t been answering Stiles’ texts lately, and Stiles is feeling a little bit petty, so he returns to his readings without so much as an answering “ _I’m busy rn._ ”

The next diagram is a lot more interesting despite its simplicity; that of a wolf. It’s pretty obvious that this is no ordinary wolf, however. To Stiles, it looks a lot like the exaggerated depictions of dire wolves he’s seen in some of the fantasy games he’s played. Large, muscular, and more than a little terrifying. But where those were rugged and primal, this drawing looks regal. Majestic almost.

Stiles wonders if Derek can shift into a wolf entirely but moves on again before he can get too distracted. Below the diagrams there’s another break in the text, but this time it’s because the page is smudged. And a rather large portion of the page at that. Stiles sighs and skips over to the next section that’s been rewritten in messy English scrawl. He’s only mildly put-out when he realizes that probably means he won’t get to find out what memory transference or pain transference entail.

_Though much of what is assumed to be true about werewolves comes from old wives’ tales, there is some truth to be found in old English folklore. Werewolves, as well as a few other shapeshifting subspecies, are governed by the moon – their power waxing and waning as the moon does each month. Werewolves are not, however, rendered completely powerless on New Moons, although the same cannot be said for a Total Lunar Eclipse. Other weaknesses include: wolfsbane (see also: aconite, monkshood), mountain ash, and mistletoe._

After the diagrams depicting wolfsbane, mistletoe, and whatever tree mountain ash comes from, the pre-written translations are few and far between. Stiles is only able translate the next two pages on his own, and even then, he gives himself a headache trying.

His grasp of Latin is limited to short sentences and medical terminology, not bestiaries that are, at minimum, two or three hundred years old. So, rather than rake through with his own broken translations, Stiles moves on to the entry on the kanima. Or tries, at least. Before Stiles can even begin to _pretend_ to read the entry he’s interrupted by the incessant buzzing of his long-abandoned phone.

Stiles sits up to grab the offending item only to be met with the image of a golden doodle puppy – aka _Scott_. Stiles has a feeling this has something to do with the increasingly frantic texts Scott was sending about an hour ago. There were a lot of exclamation points and capitalized “ _HEY’s_.”

Stiles takes a deep breath and lets it out in a rush. Scott never calls, so it must be important, which is why Stiles answers the phone despite wanting for all the world to chuck it into a lake.

“ _I need you to turn on the TV_ ,” Scott says by way of greeting when Stiles finally picks up.

Stiles blinks at his phone for a moment, confused as to how he found himself in the middle of a conversation instead of at the beginning of one. He takes a deep breath inward to say _something_ – and something rude, probably – but stops himself. Only for a moment though. Impulse control is a hell of a thing to master.

“ _Hey_ buddy,” Stiles begins, mimicking his best friend’s voice. “Yeah, I know we haven’t talked in a few days. My bad, I’ve been busy mooning over Allison. Oh, you found out Derek Hale is a werewolf? That’s so cool! Sorry I’ve been ignoring your texts and apparent **quarter life crisis.** ”

Scott heaves an exasperated sigh and says, “ ** _Hi_** _, Stiles. I’m sorry I haven’t answered your texts, okay? The sheriff’s office has been sending us every single animal that looks like it’s been attacked by that lizard thing, and I’m starting to feel like I haven’t seen the sun in a week. Wait – did you just say werewolves? And Derek **Hale**?_

“Focus, Scott,” Stiles huffs.

“ _Right. Not important. What **is** important is that you turn on the local news **right now**._ ”

“Alright, alright. Gimme a sec.” Stiles mutters something under his breath about the sudden abundance of bossy people in his life right now and digs between the cushions in search of the remote. When he finds it he says, “Who died this time, and why are you so freaked out about it? Wait, was it someone we _know_?”

Scott makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. “ _It’s not – it’s… Just **watch**. They’ve been playing it on repeat all morning._ ”

“Playing what on…?” Stiles asks, his voice trailing off as the footage plays out on his TV in slow motion.

There’s a blue bar across the bottom of the TV screen with the words _Giant Beast Caught on CCTV_ written in stark white lettering. Above that is a (crappy, in Stiles’ opinion) black and white video of what _must_ be the kanima attempting to attack a customer outside of a corner store.

“Shit.”

“ _Yeah,_ ” Scott agrees. “ _The owner of the store gave the video to the sheriff’s department a few days ago, which is why I haven’t been able to answer your texts. They’ve been pushing us to find an explanation for the video – that **animal** – before the ‘press’ got ahold of it, but –_ ”

“Someone leaked the footage,” Stiles surmises. He looks from the TV screen down to the bestiary, now laid open-faced on the coffee table, then back to the TV and asks, “Is Deaton in today?”

“ _Yeah…_ ” Scott lilts. “ _Why?_ ”

Stiles leans forward and grabs the bestiary before getting off the couch in search of his keys. He’s in the middle of slipping on a shoe when he answers. “I think it’s time Deaton and I had a talk. A _real_ talk.”

There are sounds of shuffling from the other side of the line and then Scott is saying, “ _You’re not gonna ask him about his conversation with Parrish the other day, right?_ ” Scott’s hushed tone eventually morphs into a more frantic whisper as he says, “ _Because he still doesn’t know I heard him, and I’d like to keep it that way._ ”

Stiles almost busts his ass putting on the second shoe. Let the record show it’s hard to keep a book under one arm, hold a phone, **and** bend over to put on shoes. Once Stiles has maintained his balance for a solid two seconds he says, “Relax, Scott. As much as I want to know the how and why on Parrish being in on this whole kanima thing, there are more pressing matters.”

“ _Like?_ ”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Stiles lilts. “Maybe getting rid of the fucking lizard that’s _killing_ everyone?”

Scott huffs, “ _Duh, but what makes you think Deaton knows how to do that?_ ”

As he grabs the keys to his Jeep, Stiles hisses, “Because he gave me an old ass encyclopedia for the supernatural instead of just answering my questions. He _has_ to know how to kill this thing.”

“ _He gave you **what**?_ ”

“Forget it,” Stiles says, waving the hand with his keys in it through the air. “I’m headed over there now. Do you guys have any more appointments today?”

Scott lets out a small, dry laugh. “ _Seeing as we close in five minutes – no, we shouldn’t_.”

Stiles looks out of the windows in the dining area only to be met with a murky grey sky that’s growing darker by the minute. He groans, “Fuck. I didn’t realize it was getting so late. If he tries to leave, stall him. I’m not waiting until Monday to talk to him.”

“ _Got it_ ,” Scott answers, more serious now. “ _And Stiles?_ ”

“Yeah?” Stiles replies as he locks up and heads for the stairs.

“ _Be careful._ ”

Stiles sucks in a deep breath and holds it, a little more conscious of just how fucked up his life has become than he was a second ago. “You too.”

~

There are a number of things Stiles expects to see when he leaves his apartment building; each and every one of them boring and ordinary. Except for that stray thought about lizard beasts lurking in hallways. Instead of finding a spider in the stairwell on his way down to his car, abandoned cigarette butts, one of the other tenants, or even the kanima, Stiles finds –

“Matt?” Stiles almost runs into the man, both of them attempting to walk through the stairwell door that leads to the parking lot at the same time. Matt coming, Stiles going. “What are you doing here?”

Matt startles, just as surprised by Stiles – or maybe just as surprised that he’s seeing Stiles _here_. “I’m headed up to a friend’s place. Do you live here?”

Stiles finally moves out of the way, so Matt can come inside, and lets the door shut. “Yeah I – yeah. I’m just headed out though, otherwise I’d invite you over or something.”

Stiles wouldn’t actually, but he offers because it’s the nice thing to do. Especially since Matt is still considered fresh meat at work – a title Stiles has avoided. Really though, Stiles has no interest in letting someone he barely knows into his personal space. It requires too much cleaning. Stiles doesn’t have to clean for Scott. Scott’s not judgey. Matt seems judgey. Or at least that’s the vibe he puts off. He seems awkward and a little meek at first glance, but he has eyes like a vulture. Cool and assessing, always watching.

He shrugs the thought off as Matt smiles, something genuine but small. Suddenly Stiles feels bad for thinking the guy has vulture eyes. “Nah, it’s fine. I wouldn’t want to intrude. You going out with some friends?”

Stiles snorts. “I wish. I’ve got, uh –” he flounders for a split second, trying to think of something that sounds better than _I’m headed out to interrogate a veterinarian that knows **way** too much about the supernatural_ , but saves himself with “– some studying to catch up on.”

Matt cocks his head to the side, and his eyes do that weird thing Stiles is now refusing to describe as vulture-like. It’s still a little creepy though, only barely negated by the puppy head tilt. “Oh? I never pegged you for the type to study on a Friday night.”

Stiles isn’t sure they’ve interacted enough for Matt to form any opinions at all, so he finds the idea of Matt making assumptions about his studying habits absurd and more than a little hilarious. Then again, Stiles has formed a myriad of his own about Matt. Before he can say anything in return though Matt shrugs and says, “Anyway. Try not to have too much fun… _studying_ ,” with a wry smile.

Stiles blushes once he figures out what Matt must _actually_ be thinking about his Friday night habits. “Heh. Believe me, there will be very little fun happening. I’ll – I’ll see you later.”

He ducks past Matt with a perfunctory wave of his free hand, desperate to get out of what has quickly become an awkward conversation. The last thing he needs to talk about with his coworkers – or anyone he barely knows, for that matter – is his (non-existent) sex life.

Before the door clicks he hears an amused, “See you at work!”

Stiles makes it to his Jeep in record time, chucking the bestiary on the passenger seat with what is probably not enough care considering its age. For a moment Stiles is almost distressed about the book’s well-being, up until he remembers who gave it to him.

 _Deaton_.

With a scowl, Stiles starts his Jeep and heads toward the clinic. It’s not like Stiles got the warm fuzzies when he thought about Deaton before all this, _if_ he ever did think about the guy, but what little positive thoughts existed are beginning to dwindle. Stiles doesn’t exactly have ill-feelings about the man either, but he’s become increasingly suspicious of Deaton’s motives. Like, why he gave Stiles the bestiary, how _he_ got it, or how he even knows about all of this shit in the first place.

For all Stiles knows, Deaton could be misdirecting him. He certainly has all the means to do so. Wisdom he refuses to impart in any meaningful ways, ins with the Sheriff’s Department, control of some of the evidence from the case, etc. It would be _really_ easy for him to fuck with Stiles, is the point. But… Stiles doesn’t think that’s the case. There would really be no reason for Deaton to do so, as far as he can tell based on the evidence that’s been presented to him thus far.

Except, that’s part of the problem. Stiles doesn’t understand what Deaton is getting out of this – what he gets out of helping Stiles without _actually_ helping him. Because really, who gives a kid in their twenties from bumfuck nowhere, California a book written in archaic Latin and thinks, “ _Yeah, this will definitely help. All twenty-year-old’s can read archaic Latin, right?_ ”

Granted, Stiles _does_ know some Latin and has had a fair amount of time to try and translate the thing, so this is partially his own fault, but translating foreign languages is tricky business! One slip up with an accent and you can go from fathers to popes to potatoes. So, for all Stiles knows, even what he _has_ managed to translate on his own might be wrong. Google Translate sure as fuck doesn’t know how to translate archaic Latin

Stiles should have made more time for this, but knowing the origins of kanima and the fairytale reasoning behind their venomous ways was a little low on his “Important Shit I Need to Know” list. He’s far more concerned with why the kanima finds the old BHHS varsity swim team so fun to murder. The only thing he **really** needs from the entry on the kanima is how to weaken it, trap it, and/or kill it. Everything else comes second, despite the curiosity that’s burning a hole in his skull right now.

A small part of Stiles’ mind reminds him, not so kindly, that he took the time to read the entry on werewolves when he could’ve spent that time reading the entry on the kanima. He reminds that traitorous voice that the kanima is (apparently) related to werewolves, and that he was killing two birds with one stone.

Hopefully wolfsbane’s potency extends to murderous lizard beasts, because throwing a bunch of ash from some magic tree at the kanima seems like it’ll be wholly ineffective. _And_ it also sounds like a crock of shit, but that’s neither here nor there.

Stiles pulls into the parking lot of the vet clinic, mentally batting a hand at his wandering thoughts that have now gotten away from him. It doesn’t really work though. He’s halfway through a rambling thought on how accelerated healing might be affected by wolfsbane poisoning when he walks into the clinic door. Not through it, _into_ it.

Stiles knows it’s after closing, but with the lights still on he half expected the door to be unlocked. Luckily, no one saw him. Well, no one but Scott, but he doesn’t really count.

His best friend unlocks the front door after a few careful glances over his shoulders and holds a finger up to his mouth when Stiles is finally inside. His voice is hushed when he finally says, “You _cannot_ let Deaton know it was me who let you in.”

Stiles’ mouth falls open as he splutters, “What am I supposed to tell him the fucking tooth fairy let me in?”

“I don’t know!” Scott whispers. “But leave me out of whatever talk you’re about to have. I _like_ my job – sort of.” He makes a face in disgust as he thinks of something, then adds, “Except for right now. I’ve seen enough entrails to last a lifetime.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Ugh, fine. But if I get thrown into a cell for breaking and entering then you’re posting my bail.”

 “Like your dad would let you out on bail,” Scott snorts. When he hears the click of a door down the hall he freezes. “I gotta go, I’m supposed to be taking stock of things in the back. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He’s gone before Stiles can even ask where Deaton is, though he assumes he’s somewhere in the vicinity of the noise that came from down the hall. The opposite direction of wherever Scott just went. For some reason Stiles kind of wishes Scott were beside him for this – for all of it actually. This conversation, the case, all the supernatural bullshit. It’s not like this would be the first time they got into something stupidly dangerous, either.

Back when they were both dumb teenagers in high school they thought they’d reenact _Stand by Me_ and go looking for a body in the woods. Of course, Stiles’ dad had found out before they could even get anywhere near the preserve and promptly grounded him, but the point remains. Scott would totally be up for all of this. Mostly because Stiles is a bad influence, but hey, what are best friends for?

Stiles lets out a sigh and casts one last glance back towards the room Scott disappeared into. He supposes Scott is better off being on the sidelines just this once. Safer. Look what being in the middle of it got Stiles. Three big ass scars and a week where he had to feign some mystery illness because moving made the pain so bad he almost passed out.

Idiocy, thy name is Stiles Stilinski.

But, when Stiles is in, he’s _all_ in, so he sucks it up and heads toward the bump in the night. Any other day he’d stop and knock before inviting himself into someone else’s space, but he’s afraid he’ll lose his momentum right now. That and he kind of wants to get the jump on Deaton. Too bad it doesn’t work.

Stiles half-bursts into the room with a witty quip on the edge of his lips, but it dies when he finds Derek across the examination table from Deaton. He looks between the two of them, half convinced he’s seeing things, and gets a shit-eating grin from Deaton. At least it feels that way. On the outside Deaton’s smile is as placid and collected as ever, but there’s this air of smugness around him.

“Stiles. Nice of you to join us.”

Stiles’ mouth shuts with an audible _click_ as he continues to look between Derek and Deaton, and then back again. When he’s regained a bit of his composure he hisses, “ _That’s_ how you knew the kanima attacked me that night!”

Deaton lets out a gentle breath that could almost pass for a sigh. “Yes. I also happen to be the person who suggested you and Derek work together, though that went far less smoothly than I had hoped.” He looks back at Derek and raises an eyebrow that seems decidedly disappointed before turning back to Stiles. “However, he tells me that the two of you have come to an agreement now.”

Stiles is reeling. Distantly, Deaton’s words register, but the forefront of Stiles’ mind is screaming, “ _Red flag!!! Derek and Deaton have been working together this entire time! What if Deaton has orchestrated this entire thing? What if Derek is the kanima?!_ ”

Obviously, that makes no sense. Derek was _there_ when Stiles was attacked, fighting off the kanima and protecting him. But – the thought of Deaton and Derek _knowing_ each other is unsettling for reasons Stiles can’t place.

Derek must sense this – of course he does, werewolves have supernaturally enhanced senses! – because he finally speaks. “Deaton used to work with my family.”

Stiles feels out of the loop, he decides, that’s what it is. And this is the worst possible situation for him to be out of the loop. He’s standing in a room with two people who know _way_ more than he does about the supernatural, neither of which are particularly forthcoming, and they’ve both been conspiring behind his back.

“I was his mother’s emissary,” Deaton supplies, as if that makes even a little bit of sense.

“Emissary,” Stiles repeats, voice flat.

Deaton casts another disappointed look in Derek’s direction, which is startling in its own right because Deaton very rarely emotes twice in a day, let alone in a way that conveys underlying opinions. Derek is hardly bothered by it though, only looks toward a poster on the back wall of the room before listing toward a dark corner to hide in.

With a pinch of his nose, Deaton turns back to Stiles and says, “What exactly have you and Derek discussed regarding your... _spark_?”

Stiles’ eyebrows raise, but the surprise is quickly replaced by irritation as he turns to Derek. “Why were you talking to _Deaton_ about that?”

Derek turns to face Stiles and raises an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware I needed to clear my conversations with you.”

“Maybe I don’t want you bringing up my business with vets who know a suspicious amount about the supernatural,” Stiles says as he narrows his eyes.

Deaton, to his credit, seems nonplussed by Stiles’ thinly veiled accusation. Derek, however, does not. “Like how you told your best friend about the kanima?”

“Technically, he _asked,_ and I _answered_. Wait – were you eavesdropping on our conversation?!” Stiles squawks.

Deaton clears his throat in an attempt to draw their attention to him. “If you two are finished –”

“Oh, I’m definitely _not_ finished with this conversation,” Stiles says, glaring at Derek.

“– You would know that _I’m_ the one that first spoke to Derek concerning your spark.”

Stiles turns to Deaton, deflating. “What?”

Derek huffs in his corner, a smug and satisfied sound that’s dangerously close to a laugh. Stiles flips him off.

Deaton takes a deep breath, no doubt gathering the vestiges of his patience, and says, “There’s a lot that both of you would know if you only stopped _bickering_.”

“He started it,” Stiles mutters.

Derek rolls his eyes. “You’re an absolute child.”

“He might be more inclined to listen to you if you treated him as a peer rather than a nuisance, Derek,” Deaton says as he approaches Stiles. “ _Or_ , if you explained why exactly it’s so important that the two of you work together instead of arguing.”

Stiles scrunches his eyebrows and takes a tentative step backward as Deaton gets even closer. “Uh, Doc?”

He holds out a hand, and for a moment Stiles almost thinks that he’s supposed to put his own hand in it. “The book, please.”

Stiles takes it from beneath his wing and hands it to Deaton, albeit reluctantly. “I’m not finished with it. I came to ask you some questions about it, actually.”

“I know,” Deaton says as he begins to thumb through the bestiary. “I assumed you’d be visiting after the emergency broadcast, though I did expect you a little sooner.”

Stiles’ brow furrows further as he picks up on a note of _something_ in Deaton’s voice. He speaks slowly as he pieces everything together in his mind. “I was reading…”

“About werewolves, I see.”

“… _Why_ do I get the feeling you had something to do with the footage being leaked?” Stiles asks, ignoring how weird it is that Deaton knows exactly what entry he read. It’s not like Stiles left a bookmark in the thing.

The book closes with a resounding thump, and Deaton ignores Stiles’ question in turn. “I was hoping Derek had spoken to you about your spark –”

“I _did_.”

“– but I can see now that I should’ve spoken to both of you together rather than separately.”

“What is even going _on_ here?” Stiles whines as he looks between the vet and the werewolf again. “Can we rewind? Where’s the rewind button? Because I have about ten different questions I can think of offhand.”

Derek moves from where he had situated himself in the corner. “We don’t have _time_. The kanima is getting bold, attacking people at random, and you want a _Sparks 101_ course right now?”

“Oh, screw you,” Stiles retorts. “You can get pissy about me talking to Erica, but I can’t be the least bit concerned that the two of you have been discussing my spark behind my back? Which I know _nothing_ about, by the way, other than your throwaway line about us being ‘linked.’”

Stiles lets out a sharp huff. “And that doesn’t even begin to touch on how _weird_ it is that a veterinarian I’ve known since I was at least 12 has been a bookkeeper for the fucking supernatural! I’m allowed to want to know what the fuck is going on, especially if I’m _part_ of what’s going on.”

Deaton lets out a low hum of interest from where he was situated back by the examination table. “Your spark is much more receptive to your surroundings than I anticipated.”

“What are you even talking about?” Stiles asks, annoyed. Only then does it occur to him to look down at his hands which are, once more, covered in purple static. He flexes his fingers and sighs, shutting his eyes. This only ever happens when Derek is being, well, _Derek_. Which is to say: an asshole.

Stiles tries to calm himself down with a nice, deep breath inward, but when he opens his eyes the purple swath of magic is somehow brighter. “ _Uh_ …”

“I think it’s best I finish closing the office before we discuss this any further,” Deaton says as he grabs his lab coat, slipping it on. “I trust that I can leave you two alone for five minutes while I wrap up.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Derek mumbles under his breath.

Once Deaton is out of the room and the door has clicked shut, Stiles turns back to Derek, his hands now tucked away in his pockets to hide the glow. “What the hell is your deal _this_ time?”

“Maybe I was in the middle of something important with Deaton before you interrupted.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Oh my god. It’s not like I intentionally came here to interrupt whatever it was you two were talking about. Although I have a hard time believing either of you actually discussed anything. _You_ seem like the type to communicate through facial expressions alone, and _Deaton_ practically speaks in riddle, _so_.”

Derek considers him for a few tense moments before saying, “Do you always talk this much?”

Stiles pulls a face and says, “I’m making up for your taciturn nature. You’re an awful conversation partner, you know that?”

“Maybe if you had a linear thought once in your life, it’d be easier for others to contribute.”

“Whatever.” Stiles waves a hand dismissively, but he sticks it right back in his pocket when he sees that it’s still glowing, though a little less bright now. “So, what were you here for, anyway?”

Derek raises an eyebrow, and Stiles can just **feel** the answering _Why would I tell you_ that’s coming, so he stops Derek before he can even start. “Before you say something about it being none of my business, I’d like to remind you that we agreed to work together. Sometimes that requires communication. Like – _talking_. It’s this thing you do with your mouth that involves the exchange of words, you should try it some time.”

Derek rolls his eyes and leans back against the counter behind him before crossing his arms. “The kanima.”

Stiles waits a minute to see if Derek will elaborate, but he doesn’t. It’s a miracle he even fessed up anything at all though, so Stiles counts his blessings. “ _Okaaay_. What exactly would you need to know about the kanima that your werewolf knowledge doesn’t already cover?”

“What makes you think I had a _question_ about the kanima.” Derek doesn’t ask. In fact, it almost sounds like a threat. Like he’s daring Stiles to assume he needs someone’s help with the supernatural.

Stiles isn’t buying the act. “I have a hard time believing you’d come to Deaton if you didn’t need _some_ sort of information from him. You can barely stand _me_ , and I’ve actually been helpful, unlike Edward Nygma over there. That is – unless you’re reporting to him.”

“I don’t _report_ to Deaton.” Derek says it like the idea is so absurd that it borders on offensive. Maybe it is.

With a shrug Stiles says, “Could’ve fooled me.” He lets out a lofty sigh and brings himself over to the examination table, swinging himself up to sit on it. “Deaton told you to work with me, you actually listened – execution of the task notwithstanding – and then spoke with him about my spark. Tell me again how that’s not reporting back.”

Stiles must’ve struck a nerve, which he was kind of hoping for anyway, because Derek moves out from behind the table to look him in the eyes. “There’s a difference between reporting and discussing.”

“It’s a very thin line. You sure you know which side you’re on?”

The hardened lines of Derek’s face slip, and for a moment he almost seems hesitant, though the mask of irritation is quickly reassumed. “I could ask you the same.”

Stiles lets out an amused huff and looks to the side. “I’m well aware that we report to each other. Discussion is not in your repertoire. Tell me something though, do you _trust_ Deaton?”

Derek almost seems taken aback by the question, but he brushes it off with, “I don’t trust anyone.”

Stiles looks back then, if only to roll his eyes at Derek when he says, “I call bullshit, but thanks for proving my point.”

“You had a point?”

“And you say I’m the child,” Stiles mutters. “My _point_ was that I know you came here to ask about something important, because almost no one trusts Deaton enough to willingly _share_ with him. So, spill. We’re supposed to be working together.”

Derek hesitates, though it seems to be more out of spite than genuine reluctance. Eventually he huffs out a short, “We wanted to know if it could mask itself.”

“Huh.”

“ _What?_ ”

Stiles shrugs. “Not the answer I was expecting. I kind of figured you were here because of the tape, too.”

“I _am_. Boyd and the others went to the corner store to track the kanima, but they couldn’t pick up on anything.”

He cocks an eyebrow at that. “Your puppies having performance issues?”

Derek growls, a small, near subvocal thing. “This isn’t some sort of _joke_.”

“I really hate to keep playing the ‘I got maimed for you’ card, but I will if it reminds you _just_ how aware I am of the severity of this situation.” Stiles huffs a sigh and scoots off the table. He has a feeling Deaton will be back soon. “What I meant was: how are you so sure the kanima is masking its scent? Isn’t it just as plausible that your puppies can’t track him well enough?”

“The _betas_ are perfectly fine,” Derek says, voice sharp. It’s obvious he found a way to take the idea of them not being able to track as a personal affront. “And tracking involves more than just scent.”

“So… are you saying it seems like the kanima was never even there?”

“Yes.”

“Hm.” Stiles brings a hand to his face and rubs his fingers across his lips as he thinks back. “You know, the day after we got attacked my dad told me that no one downstairs saw anything despite at least one woman being injured.”

Stiles makes a displeased noise as he thinks about it longer. “But that doesn’t make any _sense_. Didn’t you say that you guys had been tracking it before, narrowing down the area you thought it might be lurking?”

“Alpha werewolves are able to mask their scents,” Derek provides. “It makes sense that the kanima might be able to do the same.”

Stiles grimaces. “That sounds like you’re telling me that we’re up against a kanima that is not only able to paralyze people, but could possibly _turn_ them too? Alpha kanima are a _thing_?”

Derek lets out a tired sigh. “ _No_. Pack hierarchy doesn’t work the same for kanima as it does for werewolves.”

“But kanima are fucked up werewolves, are they not?” Stiles argues. “Why _wouldn’t_ it work that way?”

“Just be glad it doesn’t. Pack structure is –”

“Complicated,” Stiles interrupts with a wave of his hand. “Yeah, I remember.”

“Complicated to explain to people who aren’t _werewolves_ ,” Derek clarifies. He pauses for a moment, turning his head towards the door ever so slightly. “Deaton’s coming.”

Stiles smirks. He loves it when he’s right. “Later then? Or do you plan on keeping me at arm’s length until you need the latest case file.”

Derek looks at him just before Deaton reaches the door. “Later. But not here.”

~

Stiles groans, letting his head hit the metal examination table cum studying desk. Deaton, despite making a show of wanting to elaborate on the whole _spark_ thing earlier, has given both Stiles and Derek a veritable mountain of “research material” to sift through instead. Maybe he’s gone senile in his old(ish) age, maybe he changed his mind, or maybe he expected that Derek would actually talk to Stiles. Whatever the case, Stiles is stuck reading about the kanima now because Deaton got tired of answering his questions about five minutes in.

Stiles mutters a few curses into the table before raising his head to look back down at the entry on the kanima. He’s essentially translating the entire thing from scratch, and had he known that was what was on the itinerary for the night he would have gotten coffee on the way here. His head hurts, and he says as much.

Twirling his fingers against his temples, Stiles looks at Derek, who is dutifully ignoring him. He’s currently across the table scowling at an article on the different types of wolfsbane like he might be able to set it on fire through sheer force of will alone. When Derek narrows his eyes at a particular line, Stiles almost believes he might be able to. It’s a very intense glare. Then again, everything about Derek is kind of intense.

Stiles considers the man for a moment, thinking back to the entry on werewolves. He can almost picture Derek’s lupine face, his jagged teeth and those ridiculous sideburns, but the memory is beginning to fade more and more. Derek must sense Stiles watching because he slowly lifts his head and quirks an eyebrow in question.

“Sorry,” Stiles mumbles, blushing. “S’just thinking.”

Derek’s other eyebrow joins the unspoken conversation his first one started, and for a second Stiles almost thinks he might say something snide like, “ _Take a picture, it’ll last longer_ ,” but he doesn’t. He just looks back down at the sentence he was highlighting and continues to take notes in the margins when he sees fit.

With a sigh Stiles returns to the bestiary, picking at the pages. He makes it about two minutes before he groans again and pushes it away. The words are beginning to look like indecipherable squiggles – more so than usual, anyway – and Stiles’ eyes are starting to burn.

“How many more times do you plan on sighing in the next five minutes?” Derek asks as he uncaps his highlighter again. Stiles had no idea angry highlighting was a thing.

“I don’t even want to hear it from you,” Stiles huffs. “You get to read about _flowers_ in an article that’s written in _English_. I’m stuck translating an entry on the thing that tried gutting me right outside my apartment. _And_ it’s written in a dead language. I’m allowed to complain a little.”

“What language?” Derek asks, bypassing half of what Stiles has said once again. It’s a smart decision, really, because Stiles is getting a little snippy right now.

“Latin.”

Derek gives Stiles an unimpressed look. “Latin is hardly a dead language.”

“Fine. _You_ translate it,” Stiles says, pushing the book across the table. “And you don’t get to look at what I have written down already.”

A smirk tugs at the corners of Derek’s lips as he takes the book. “Would you like me to read aloud?”

Stiles scoffs. “I would love to see you try.”

Derek clears his throat and holds the book up to read it. “It says, ‘Stop complaining. Read a different book if you hate this one so much.’”

“ _God_ , you’re such a fucking –” Stiles reaches for the bestiary, but Derek holds it just outside of his reach. “– dick! _Give me the book!_ ”

The man holds up a hand and makes a show of reading the book again. “ _Kanima: the conflicted snake._ ”

Stiles gapes at him. “You could read Latin this whole _time_?”

Derek holds the book out with one hand and picks up his highlighter with the other. He doesn’t so much as look at Stiles when he says, “No, I just read part of your notes while you were writing.”

“Asshole.” Stiles rips the book out of his hand.

“Why _don’t_ you pick a different book to read?”

“Oh my god, you’re _right_. Why didn’t I think of that?” Stiles intones. “Except, oh wait, all the other books are either useless or don’t have anything on the kanima at all!”

Derek rubs his thumb and forefinger over his eyes tiredly. “If I had known you were going to be this much of a drama queen I wouldn’t have agreed to work together.” He holds out a hand again, this time for Stiles’ notes. “Let me look at what you have so far.”

Stiles narrows his eyes. “ _Why?_ ”

“Are you just asking to be difficult?” Derek huffs impatiently.

“If I wanted to be difficult I would’ve just told you no,” Stiles points out.

“ _Then?_ ”

Stiles tugs the notes a little closer to his side of the desk. “I’m not finished.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Who cares?”

“ **I** care. They’re _my_ notes.”

Derek bares his teeth, letting his canines elongate. “What happened to _working_ _together?_ ”

Stiles’ pulse quickens, though he’s beginning to sense Derek does these things more for show than he does them because he actually wants to maim Stiles. “Working together requires patience. You can wait until I’m finished.”

“And what if the kanima attacks again before that?” Derek growls as he rises from his seat to loom over Stiles. “Wouldn’t it be better if you told me _something_ instead of nothing?”

Stiles flips the stack of papers on their face out of spite, standing as well. “ _Weird_ , that’s kind of how I felt when I realized you and Deaton have been chatting about my spark without me. Not so fun to be out of the loop, _is it?_ Sucks when you feel powerless to help, even though you know there’s _something_ you can do – if only you knew what – **doesn’t it?** ”

“It wasn’t –” Derek closes his mouth and lets a sharp, frustrated breath out of his nostrils. When he opens his mouth again his canines are boringly human. “I don’t know much more than you do.”

“Yes, you do!” Stiles snaps, exasperated. “This isn’t like – like you knowing the missing ingredient to some apple pie recipe. You know something about what I _am_ , and that’s like knowing a whole order of magnitude more than I do.”

Stiles looks away, clenching his teeth together. He didn’t realize how much this was bothering him until now. Turns out it’s bothering him **a lot**. “I know we agreed to work together, but I also know you have no problem keeping me in the dark when you see fit. So, you’ll have to excuse me for keeping bargaining chips every once in a while so I can make sure we stay on equal footing. The last thing I want is to be taken advantage of; you’ve made it abundantly clear how weak I am.”

He plops himself back down into his seat after a moment, clearing his throat as he grabs the bestiary again. Derek, on the other hand, says nothing and continues to stand. Stiles is almost ready to look back up when he hears the unforgiving screech of a metal chair dragging across the floor. When Stiles _does_ look up Derek is already gone and the double doors to the room have swung shut.

“Ugh.” Stiles lets his head hit the metal table, picking it up only to let it thud against the table again. And again.

He’s muttering things about _grumpy werewolves_ and _dumb lizard demons_ when something hits the table beside him. The undignified yelp he lets out is absolutely called for, and he doesn’t care what anyone says. Especially since Derek is looming over him again.

Stiles looks back down at the table, wondering what Derek threw onto it, and finds a wooden circle with a triple spiral carved into it that _kind of_ reminds him of a fidget spinner. He’d make a joke about it, but there’s an almost suffocating sense of power emanating from the thing, and when he picks it up it’s a lot heavier than it looks. It also feels like stone despite seeming very obviously to be made of wood.

When he looks back up at Derek the man has looked away, staring off into the distance at some unnamable point. “Emissaries are usually druids.”

Stiles gets the feeling that he’s not supposed to say anything in return, but he can’t help his answering, “ _Okay?_ ”

“They act as advisors to werewolf packs.” Derek adds, though it feels like he’s leaving something else out by saying it.

Stiles takes a deep breath. “What does this have to do with –?”

“Deaton thinks you’re supposed to be my emissary,” Derek finally says in a rush.

There are about five different things Stiles could say to that:

  1. _I’m pretty sure you and I agree that I’m not your **anything**_.
  2. _I thought you said I was a spark, not a druid_.
  3. _You sound like you don’t agree with Deaton._
  4. _What the hell could **I** possibly advise **you** on?_
  5. _Why the hell does Deaton think it’s **me**?_



Instead Stiles chooses to say, “But Deaton was your mother’s emissary… wouldn’t that just make him _yours_ by default?”

Derek finally looks at him, and when he does Stiles feels as if he’s been struck by lightning. Like his skin is too tight, every one of his nerves dancing until frayed. It’s not unlike whenever he and Derek touch and shock one another.

Stiles is rendered speechless by it, but Derek seems more talkative than ever. “Alphas form bonds with their emissaries, and vice versa. Once an Alpha –” He falters for a moment, then continues, “– When a new Alpha takes over, the old emissary is usually replaced.”

“Oh,” Stiles says, and he’s surprised he even gets that much out. He doesn’t think he could say much more even if he tried because it feels more and more like he’s paralyzed the longer he maintains eye contact with Derek. That same _something_ from before is building in the space between them, that electric charge Stiles felt when he was in Derek’s apartment yesterday.

Derek is the one to break them from the trance again, looking at that far off point once more. “Deaton helps when he can, when he _wants_ to, but he can never fully assume the role of emissary again.”

Stiles takes advantage of the reprieve, sucking in a deep breath. Once he’s steadied himself he blinks down at the heavy spiral in his hand and runs a thumb over one of the whorls. “Why are you telling me all of this, exactly?”

He sees Derek sit down across from him in his periphery, hears the way Derek brings his arms up to rest on the table. “A spark has the potential to become an emissary to a werewolf pack.”

“But they’re usually druids,” Stiles says, echoing Derek’s earlier sentiment.

He looks up just in time to catch the tail end of Derek’s nod. “Mages. Humans with magical ties.”

Only then does it dawn on Stiles that this must mean Deaton is a druid, _or_ that he possesses some sort of magical abilities. He’s terrified by the prospect for a moment, but deep down it kind of makes sense – like it’s something Stiles has always known.

Stiles files those thoughts away for later so he can focus on the more pressing matters. Like whatever the hell Derek is trying to tell him without actually having to say it. “Can you just – what am I supposed to get from this? Because it sounds like you’re telling me that emissaries are essentially just magical guidance counselors, _and_ that Deaton still helps you like he’s yours whenever he can, but that he also can’t be… I mean, I get that he probably bonded with your mother, but what difference does that make if he was just around to _advise_ her?”

Derek gets a pained look on his face, like he knows what to say but doesn’t want to, and for what will probably end up being a stupid reason. It makes Stiles roll his eyes. “Will you just spit whatever it is out? You look like you swallowed a lemon.”

That earns Stiles an unrestrained glare, but Derek almost looks sick when he _does_ decide to say whatever it is he must have been trying to avoid. “They’re called emissaries because they connect werewolves to humanity. _Their_ humanity.”

Derek’s hands scrunch to a close around the papers he had been highlighting earlier. It sounds as though he’s speaking around gravel when he says, “Deaton can act as an emissary for _me_ , but not for my pack.”

“And that’s because of his bond with your mother, since you were part of her pack…” Stiles finishes, slowly piecing everything together, and feeling a little bit more sick because of it. “But why does he think I’m your emissary? Can’t you just pick anyone who knows their way around a spell book?”

“It’s not that simple,” Derek huffs.

Stiles rolls his eyes. “You say that about everything.”

“That’s because things aren’t black and white,” Derek snaps. “There are shades of grey, and it makes things _complicated_.”

“Maybe you’re _making_ it more complicated than it needs to be,” Stiles retorts.

Derek closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “He thinks it’s you because I awakened your spark.”

Stiles jerks his head back in surprise. “You did _what_ now?”

Derek releases the papers trapped in his hands and spreads his fingers across the cool metal, as if to ground himself. “Most humans with a spark never even realize they have it. Yours only manifested because –”

“What? Because you _talked_ to me?” Stiles asks incredulously when Derek trails off.

“Not exactly, but more or less.” Derek opens his eyes, but he studiously avoids looking at Stiles.

Stiles frowns. “There’s something else you’re not saying.”

“Drop it,” Derek says quickly, almost defensively. “That’s all I can explain.”

Stiles opens his mouth to argue, call bullshit, _something_ , but he closes it with a sigh just as quickly. Derek looks uncomfortable enough that Stiles actually believes him. “Okay,” he says, relenting.

 The room is quiet after that, and Stiles uses the space to consider everything Derek just told him. It’s a bit confusing. On one hand, the information helps Stiles very little with regards to whatever being a spark means, but on the other, it _does_ clear up why Derek insisted Stiles work with the pack in the first place. Still, it’s raised a few more questions in the process, although _everything_ Stiles is learning about lately has done the same, so he really can’t complain.

With a low hum, Stiles looks down at his notes. This was obviously Derek’s way of extending an olive branch, and Stiles is an odd mix of appreciative and confused. He settles for returning the favor. Olive branches he can do – _real_ ones, not just empty words exchanged in an apartment for the sake of the better good.

After one last peek in Derek’s direction, Stiles clears his throat and turns his notes over. He takes a quick picture of each page and then slowly slides the small stack across the table. “Here.”

Derek looks down at the papers like they’re some sort of three-headed monster, so Stiles feels the need to clarify. “Take them. I’ll need them back eventually, but you live across the hall, so it’s not like I’ll have to hunt you down. Just – take everything written with a grain of salt. Some of the words might’ve been translated incorrectly.”

Derek nods once, finally reaching out to take them. He doesn’t say thank you, but there’s something appreciative in his eyes when he looks up at Stiles. The open gaze doesn’t last long though, because he looks back down at the notes, runs a finger over the messy words. “It’s getting late.”

“Yeah,” Stiles breathes out. “I should get going. I’ve got some digging around to do tomorrow.”

Part of him wants to stay here, so that maybe he can maintain this delicate balance he and Derek have created, but he also doesn’t want to push it. Too afraid to break it on accident. So, he stands and grabs his jacket, readying himself to leave.

Stiles is just about to gather up his newly expanded stack of materials when his eyes fall on the wooden spiral again. He picks it up and turns it over in his hands, half expecting to find an inscription on the back, but there’s nothing. He hazards a glance in Derek’s direction. “Can I ask you something?”

Derek raises an eyebrow in favor of using his words, but Stiles takes that as a yes, so he asks away. “What is this thing?”

“A triskelion.”

Stiles hums. “Any particular use for it?”

“Many.”

Stiles tries, and fails, to stifle his answering laugh. “I’m guessing this is a topic for another day.” He runs his thumb over it almost reverently, soothed by its smooth texture and cool surface.

“Can I… keep it?” Stiles isn’t sure why he asks, but it seems like the right thing to do.

Derek almost seems pleased, like Stiles made the right decision. Maybe it was his as soon as it hit the table. “Try not to lose it.”

“I won’t,” Stiles replies easily. He grabs the rest of his things and makes it as far as the double doors before he turns his head over his shoulder. “You still want to talk about our lizard friend later?” He’s not sure if Derek’s willingness to share tonight will extend into tomorrow, but he asks anyway, hoping for the best.

Much to his surprise, Derek agrees. “Later.”

~

Stiles walks out of the veterinary clinic feeling oddly optimistic for the first time in a few weeks. He and Derek exchanged information without arguing (too much), and Stiles even got to ask Deaton a few questions about the kanima which he _almost_ got straightforward answers to. He’s not exactly jumping for joy when he gets to his Jeep, but he feels lighter, like some of his burdens have been momentarily lifted. Naturally, the universe has to knock Stiles down a peg before he gets any ideas.

The thing about Stiles’ life is that nothing ever goes as smoothly as he so desperately wishes it would. When he lost his first tooth it wasn’t because it was ready to come out; he tripped, fell, and _knocked_ it out. His first kiss? Equally tragic. Let’s just say braces were involved and dental tools may or may not have been used to separate Stiles from an equally mortified Audrey West.

The point is: Stiles is no stranger to the ups and downs of life. But fuck if he isn’t tired of the shit.

He’s humming along to _Bad Moon Rising_ when his tire pops, pulling him from his optimism induced reverie. There’s a very loud **_bang_** just before the Jeep veers to the left, crossing the yellow-line and sending him careening into the lane of oncoming traffic. Luckily, there’s no one on the opposite side of the road.

Nerves be damned, Stiles keeps his hands steady on the wheel in order to keep Roscoe in line and tries not to brake as he slows. The last thing he needs right now is to skid and spin out. Once he’s safely stopped on the (wrong) side of the road, Stiles lets out a groan that turns into an aggravated shout as he drops his head against his steering wheel. His Jeep beeps in protest.

“This is just. Fucking. _Peachy_ ,” he mutters to himself as he hits his head against the steering wheel a few more times. He blindly reaches up and puts his hazards on, too exhausted to bother looking up.

He spends at least three minutes that way, thinking of what songs to play at the pity party he’s throwing himself tomorrow, before he drags himself out of the Jeep to assess the damage. It’s not awful, but it ain’t good either. The tire is shot, which sucks, but the tread didn’t separate, which is good. Had it separated, Stiles probably would have spun out, or worse, lost control of the Jeep and flipped.

“Don’t worry, baby,” Stiles says as he pats Roscoe lovingly. “We’ll get you fixed up in no time.”

‘No time’ is actually a lot of time; more than Stiles would like to admit, actually. First, Stiles’ phone dies two rings into his call to Scott. At _fifteen percent_. Then, as Stiles contemplates changing the tire himself, the sky upends itself. He has half the mind to stay on course out of pure spite for the universe, but his tire jack refuses to move after years of disuse and Stiles can feel the chill from the rain in his bones.

“It cannot get any worse than this,” Stiles huffs as he closes the door to his Jeep, hunkering down until his phone charges enough to turn on.

He’d laugh at this next part if he wasn’t terrified, because he obviously jinxed something by complaining. Stiles barely has time to brace himself after the screech he hears coming from the forest somewhere to his right when his Jeep rocks with the force of whatever just landed on it.

Scratch that. Stiles knows exactly what landed on it. He’d remember those yellow eyes anywhere. They’re hypnotic, so much so that Stiles can’t bring himself to look away. He swears the thing smiles at him, feral grin warping its scaly features.

It’s a futile precaution, but Stiles brings his hand to his door to lock it and slowly reaches toward the passenger seat to grab his bat. A dumb move, really. The kanima makes that much known when it brings its fist down on the windshield with an angry hiss, causing the glass to spider. The second punch does it, breaking enough of the windshield for the kanima to reach inside and grab Stiles. Or, it might have if Stiles hadn’t frantically reclined his chair to avoid being caught.

He’s just prolonging the inevitable, really.

The kanima screeches again, furious, and begins tearing at the glass as Stiles scrambles into his back seat with his bat. There’s something to be said about feeling like an animal trapped in a cage. In the back of his mind, Stiles wonders if this is how fish feel when humans tap on the glass. He’ll probably find out soon, since the kanima is going to drown him like it did all its other victims.

Stiles closes his eyes, bat gripped tightly in his hands, and says a silent prayer. It involves a lot of groveling, a few angry curses, and one tired plea for the universe and whatever deities it houses to be kind to his father. He doesn’t regret keeping his dad from the supernatural truth of this case, exactly, but Stiles hates that his father will probably never feel a proper sense of closure if he finds his son gutted with no **real** animal to blame it on.

Back in the present, the kanima tears the last bit of the windshield from its place before falling back down onto all fours, its tail swishing madly in the rain. Stiles feels hot and cold all at once under its maddening gaze. His skin has long since iced over due to the winter rain, but something inside of him is beginning to burn. Something like rage.

“I know what you are, and _someone_ out there is going to find you and kill you,” Stiles grits out as he braces himself for attack. “Even if you kill me first.”

The kanima’s eyes burn a little brighter, as if to acknowledge what Stiles has said, and it lunges forward. Stiles thrusts his bat up horizontally, stopping the kanima in a way that could almost be described as comical were Stiles’ life not in danger. The kanima has lodged its teeth into the bat in its attempt to bite Stiles, and its hands are clamped around the bat, bracketed by Stiles’ own hands that are now on either end of the bat. But not for long.

Stiles musters up all the strength he can gather and pushes the kanima back until it’s out of his space and kicks the rear passenger side door open. He quickly slams it behind himself and runs away from the Jeep without a thought for which direction he’s chosen, desperately wracking his brain for ideas on how to make it out of this alive. Hiding seems futile, and fighting is a double no, which leaves Stiles with… nothing.

 _Fuck_.

He’s not even surprised when the kanima tackles him from behind; he never stood a chance to begin with. Neither did his coat or the two shirts beneath it, which saved Stiles from a _very_ nasty set of gashes in his back. Not that it would matter since he’s going to die anyway.

Except – it doesn’t happen that way.

Stiles holds his breath, waiting for the kanima to finish him off, and time slows to near standstill. Instead of hearing one last angry screech from the lizard, Stiles is met with the screech and slip of tires on rain-soaked pavement. And, instead of blinding pain, he’s met with a nauseating and bone deep wave of relief when something tackles the kanima off of him.

Stiles has two guesses as to who it might be, and he’s willing to bet that a deputy from the Sheriff’s Department wouldn’t launch themselves at a lizard beast to fight it. They also wouldn’t look up at Stiles like this is somehow _his_ fault and yell, “Get in the car, **_now!_** ”

It doesn’t matter though, because Stiles is not about to look this gift horse in the mouth. He fights to pull himself up off the ground and bolts for dark car waiting at the other side of the road once he’s on his feet. He’s not sure what he expected to happen next, but Stiles didn’t think Derek would be so quick to follow.

Unfortunately, the kanima is up and sprinting towards the car just as quickly as Derek. It hops onto the hood of the car as soon as the two of them shut their respective doors, and for a moment Stiles is horrified he’s going to have to watch this play out all over again. That is, until Derek peels out and sends the kanima tumbling off the hood.

It’s all a bit anti-climactic after that, the two of them sitting in strained silence as Derek breaks every known traffic law and then some. If it weren’t for the terror coursing through Stiles’ veins and the tears in his clothes he’d almost think he was dreaming, but he’s not that lucky.

When Stiles has found his voice, he looks over at Derek and croaks, “Maybe we shouldn’t wait until later to have that talk.”

Derek only grunts in return, but it’s pretty clear that he agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, please, _please_ tell me if you're enjoying this fic or if there are any things you would like to see. While I absolutely thrive on praise (as any author does), I mostly want to make sure you guys are enjoying the story (since I lowkey abandoned it for TWO YEARS).
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading. It means the world to me<3

**Author's Note:**

> It might only take a few months, or it might take a year, but I'm back to finish this fic once and for all. Only then will my anxiety riddled brain know peace. Please feel free to comment, tell me what you love and what you want to see. Your encouragement and excitement means the world to me.
> 
> As always, thank you for reading<3


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